Australia, 1884—designates the adjective ‘bloody’ used as an intensifier—although ‘bloody’ is used as an intensifier in other countries, its widespread use in Australia is seen as characteristic of this country
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Australia, 1946—to return to one’s profession after retirement; of a singer or other performer: to make frequent comebacks—from the repeated farewell performances given by Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba
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Australia, 1935—a person with extensive knowledge—originally the announcer outside Hoyt’s Theatre in Melbourne, Victoria, who wore a most elaborate uniform
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UK and Ireland, since 1913—this jocular phrase has been used as an ironic expression of gratitude and as a goodbye
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conveys derisive self-congratulation for an action that the speaker has done from a sense of duty rather than for pleasure—from a line uttered by Charles Laughton in the 1933 film The Private Life of Henry VIII
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used to characterise melodrama—from the words said over her dead child by Lady Isabel in East Lynne (1874), T. A. Palmer’s stage play adapted from the 1861 novel by the English author Mrs. Henry Wood (Ellen Price)
Read MoreUSA, 1883—exclamation of surprise at seeing something or somebody unexpected—alludes to a hunter who will lament seeing all sorts of game when he goes out into the woods and fields without his gun
Read MoreUK, 18th century—addressed to one who stands between the speaker and the light of a window, a lamp, a candle or a fire, or, more generally, to one who obstructs the speaker’s view
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1951—with pun on the noun ‘camp’ (i.e.: encampment): extremely camp (i.e.: ostentatiously and extravagantly effeminate; deliberately exaggerated and theatrical in style)
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theatre—a typical entrance or exit line given to a young man in a superficial drawing-room comedy—USA 1934—but 1908 in a short story evoking the pastimes of members of the leisured class during a stay at a country house
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