‘to drive pigs (to market)’: meaning and origin
to snore—UK, 1828—this phrase likens a person’s snoring to the sound made by a herd of pigs
Read More“ad fontes!”
to snore—UK, 1828—this phrase likens a person’s snoring to the sound made by a herd of pigs
Read MoreUSA, 1825—the phrases that are built on the pattern ‘(as) [adjective] as a meat-ax(e)’ intensify the meaning of the adjective—this adjective can be ‘savage’, ‘wicked’, or ‘mad’
Read MoreUK, 1831—In ‘beer and skittles’, denoting unmixed enjoyment, the image is of a person drinking beer while playing skittles.
Read More‘a stiff upper lip’: a quality of uncomplaining stoicism—now understood as referring to what is believed to be a quintessentially British trait, the repression of emotion, but originated in fact in North America (USA, 1811)
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