the Roman origin of ‘Punic faith’
from Latin ‘Pūnica fidēs’, literally ‘Phoenician faith’, meaning ‘perfidy’, with reference to Carthage, the enemy of Rome over several centuries
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mistaken etymology of ‘not to give a XXXX’ in the Oxford English Dictionary
UK, 1972—‘XXXX’: a euphemistic substitute for a four-letter swear word, usually ‘fuck’—it did not originally refer to the Australian lager Castlemaine XXXX
Read Moreorigin of ‘vamoose’
from Spanish ‘vamos’, ‘let us go’—first recorded as ‘vamos’ in ‘Every Night Book; or, Life after Dark’ (London, 1827), by the English author William Clarke
Read Morethe Cantabrigian origin of ‘wooden spoon’
originally, at Cambridge University: oversized wooden spoon given to the candidate coming last in the mathematical tripos (BA-degree final honours examination)
Read Morethe Shakespearean origin of ‘sea change’
from ‘Full Fathom Five’, Ariel’s song to Ferdinand in ‘The Tempest’, by Shakespeare, where ‘sea change’ denotes a change brought about by the action of the sea
Read Morethe Shakespearean origin of ‘salad days’
‘salad days’: days of youthful inexperience—coined by Shakespeare in ‘Antony and Cleopatra’—alludes to the raw (green and cold) vegetables used in a salad
Read Moreorigin of the verb ‘bogart’ (to monopolise)
from ‘Don’t Bogart That Joint’ (1968), song by Fraternity of Man—alludes to the way Humphrey Bogart held a cigarette for long dialogues without smoking it
Read Moreorigin of the British phrase ‘to go for a burton’
to meet with disaster; to be ruined, destroyed or killed—UK, 1941, RAF slang: (of an airman) to be killed—perhaps from ‘to go for a drink (of Burton ale)’
Read Moreorigin of the phrase ‘good wine needs no bush’
first recorded in ‘As You Like It’, by Shakespeare—from the former practice of hanging a branch or bunch of ivy as a vintner’s sign in front of a tavern
Read Moreorigin of ‘to take the cake’ and ‘to take the biscuit’
‘take the cake’ (US, 1839) alludes probably to cake as the prize in a contest, but maybe not to cakewalk—‘take the biscuit’ (US, 1879) used in British English
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