‘spit and sawdust’: meaning and origin
UK, 1928—of a public-house: very basic and lacking in comforts—refers to the former practice of covering the floor of a public-house with sawdust into which customers spat
Read MoreUK, 1928—of a public-house: very basic and lacking in comforts—refers to the former practice of covering the floor of a public-house with sawdust into which customers spat
Read More1914—the colloquial British-English phrase ‘to pop one’s clogs’ means ‘to die’—while ‘clog’ designates a shoe with a thick wooden sole, the acceptation of the verb ‘to pop’ is obscure
Read MoreUK, 1844—extreme meanness never made anyone better off—compare Book of Proverbs, 11:24: “There is one who scatters, yet increases more; and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty.”
Read MoreAustralia, 1951—used of someone who has departed and left no indication of their present whereabouts—purportedly from the story of one Malley, who was told by his boss to hold a cow; on the boss’s return, the cow had disappeared, and Malley said “She’s a goner!”
Read MoreUSA, 1911—is applied to an act or activity that brings in no money—is often preceded by the third-person singular pronoun ‘it’
Read MoreThis phrase is applied to someone who is very strong and resilient in the face of hardship or pain. It originated in the USA in 1918; it has been used in British English since 1933.
Read Moremilitary slang, derisive—of military medals and decorations: to be awarded automatically, without regard to merit—coined during the First World War
Read MoreUSA, 1990—a persistent or indefatigable person or phenomenon—refers to ‘Energizer Bunny’, the name of a battery-operated toy rabbit represented as never running out of energy, featured from 1988 in a television advertising campaign for batteries
Read MoreSince the mid-20th century, with reference to garden tea parties, the phrase ‘cucumber sandwiches on the lawn’ and its variants have been used to characterise traditional Englishness.
Read Moremeans that, if one is unaware of an unpleasant fact or situation, one cannot be troubled by it—coined by the English poet Thomas Gray in An Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, first published in 1747
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