meanings and origin of ‘Judas sheep’ and ‘Judas goat’
USA, early 20th century—a sheep or a goat used to lead sheep to slaughter—hence any person or thing used as a decoy to lure people into being caught, arrested, etc.
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meaning and origin of ‘Fibber McGee’s (hall) closet’
USA, 1942—used with reference to clutter, jumble, mess—alludes to the overstuffed closet in U.S. radio comedy series ‘Fibber McGee and Molly’ (1935 to 1956)
Read Morehistory of the phrase ‘How many divisions has the Pope?’
used to pose the dilemma between material power and moral strength, and seemingly to dismiss the latter—from a question allegedly posed by Joseph Stalin (USA 1943)
Read Moremeanings and origin of ‘beggar my neighbour’
1734: a card game in which one player tries to win all the cards of the other—1802: refers to an advantage gained by one side at the expense of the other
Read Morenotes on various acceptations of the term ‘rat pack’
USA—derogatory appellation for a group of persons—1950 Los Angeles’s gangs of hoodlums—1955 self-designation of a group of Hollywood celebrities
Read More‘Fabian’ applied to George Washington | the Fabian Society
Washington’s strategy was similar to that of Fabius Cunctator, who defeated Hannibal by avoiding decisive contests—the Fabian Society advocates gradual reforms
Read Moremeanings and early instances of ‘Freudian slip’
USA, 1927—a slip of the tongue by which the speaker reveals an unconscious thought—named after Austrian neurologist and psychotherapist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Read Morehistory of the phrase ‘(but) some — are more equal than others’
USA—from 1848 onwards in contrast to ‘all men are equal’—now often alludes to ‘but some animals are more equal than others’ in Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945)
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘no joy in Mudville’
USA, 1895—a sense of pervasive and shared disappointment—alludes to the defeat of the baseball team of Mudville, a fictional town in E. L. Thayer’s 1888 poem ‘Casey at the Bat’
Read Morehistory of the phrase ‘a sheep in sheep’s clothing’
USA, 1884—a person whose lack of courage is as real as it appears to be—jocular variant of ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’—often misattributed to Winston Churchill
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