‘(as) sure as God made little apples’: meaning and origin
UK, 1796—meaning: ‘certainly’, ‘definitely’; ‘without a doubt’—US variant, 1893: ‘(as) sure as God made (little) green apples’
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‘a cold day in July’ | ‘a cold day in hell’
USA—‘a cold day in July’ 1881—‘a cold day in hell’ 1906—those phrases refer to an impossibly distant time or to an extremely unlikely scenario
Read More‘to make a Virginia fence’: meaning and origin
North-American colonies, 1737—to walk in a swerving, unstable manner—especially used of an inebriated person’s gait—refers to ‘Virginia fence’, denoting a fence consisting of sets of wooden rails that interlock in a zigzag fashion
Read More‘as busy as a one-armed taxi-driver with crabs’ and other colourful phrases
There have been, since the early 20th century a number of colourful variants of the U.S. phrase ‘as busy as a one-armed paperhanger’—for example, in Australian English, ‘as busy as a one-armed taxi-driver with crabs’ and ‘as busy as a brickie in Beirut’.
Read More‘aptronymic’, ‘aptonym’, etc.
USA—‘aptronymic’ 1915—‘aptonymic’ 1949—‘aptronym’ 1919—‘aptonym’ 1984—these nouns denote a person’s name that is regarded as amusingly appropriate to their profession or personal characteristics—from the adjective ‘apt’, meaning ‘appropriate in the circumstances’, and the suffixes ‘-onymic’ and ‘-onym’
Read More‘dadchelor party’: meaning and origin
USA, 2009—a party given for a man who is about to become a father, attended by men only—‘dadchelor’: a blend of ‘dad’ (i.e., ‘father’) and of ‘bachelor’ in ‘bachelor party’ (a party given for a man who is about to get married, attended by men only)
Read More‘Dickless Tracy’: meanings and origin
USA, 1963—a female police officer or a female traffic warden—puns on ‘dick’, slang for a man’s penis, and the name of Dick Tracy, a comic-strip detective created in 1931 by the U.S. cartoonist Chester Gould
Read More‘to live on the smell of an oil rag’: meaning and early occurrences
to live in conditions of extreme want—Australia, 1832; Ireland and Britain, 1834; USA, 1846—in early use, the phrase frequently occurs in relation to Ireland and to the armed forces
Read More‘cakeage’: meanings and origin
Australia, 1985—Coined after ‘corkage’, the noun ‘cakeage’ denotes, in a restaurant, the cutting and serving of a cake that has been brought in by a customer from off the premises, hence also a charge levied for this service.
Read More‘blue-sky talk’ | ‘blue-sky research’
USA—‘blue-sky talk’ 1900—‘blue-sky research’ 1947—the adjective ‘blue-sky’ is used to mean: (in negative sense) fanciful, hypothetical; (in positive sense) creative or visionary—from the notion of a blue sky as a place free from disturbances or difficulties
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