“ad fontes!”
one must wear a hat in order to become successful in one’s life or career—originally the slogan for an advertising campaign organised in 1948 by the British hat-manufacturers when hat-wearing began to decline
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alludes to the menus in Chinese restaurants, which list the dishes in two columns, column A and column B—USA, 1956—first in reference to comedian Buddy Hackett’s routine on a Chinese waiter taking an order
Read More(baseball) a good fielder, but a poor hitter, i.e., batter—USA, 1925—purportedly coined in 1924 by Miguel Gonzales to describe Moe Berg in a telegram to Mike Kelley
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a live video feed in a sports arena showing images of selected couples in the audience in the expectation that they will kiss—USA and Canada, 2001
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addition to proverb ‘God helps those who help themselves’—USA, UK and Australia, late 19th century—originated as a warning to shoplifters
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used in 1939 by Leo Rosten about U.S. actor W. C. Fields—has been wrongly attributed to the latter—but first used by U.S. journalist Byron Darnton, according to an article of 1937
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USA, 1992—the folds of loose skin or fat which hang from the undersides of a person’s upper arms—so named because they are common in older women, who are regarded as the type of person most likely to play bingo
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USA, 1938—UK, 1961—satirical phrase referring to the addiction to bingo, a game in which players mark off numbers on cards as the numbers are drawn randomly by a caller, the winner being the first person to mark off all their numbers
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UK, 1879—meanings: an undisciplined assault on food and drink, and, by extension, any disorderly but excited scene
Read MoreUSA, 1833—jocular phrase meaning that the speaker does not care what he is being called—a U.S. and Australian variant uses ‘breakfast’ instead of ‘dinner’
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word histories 