origin of ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get(s) going’
USA, 1953—originally a motto adopted by football coaches—has often been used humorously with variation of the main clause
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early meanings of the portmanteau ‘screenager’
USA—blend of ‘screen’ and ‘teenager’—(1957) teenagers reacting to a movie—(1985) teenagers as represented by TV and cinema
Read More‘to know —— like the back of one’s hand’ – ‘connaître —— comme sa poche’
first attested in David Balfour (1893), by Robert Louis Stevenson—French equivalent ‘connaître comme sa/ses poche(s)’ (‘to know like one’s pocket(s)’ – 1791)
Read Moreorigin and sense development of Anglo-Irish ‘bejesus’
1825, Anglo-Irish alteration of ‘by Jesus’—1867 as one word—‘the bejesus out of’ (1931) intensifies the action conveyed by the preceding verb
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘belt and braces’–‘belt and suspenders’
UK, 1948—USA, 1952—from the image of the over-cautious man who wears both a belt and braces/suspenders to hold up his trousers
Read More‘that’s how the cookie crumbles’ and ‘(that’s when) the cookie crumbled’
USA, 1950s—‘that’s how the cookie crumbles’: that’s how it is—‘(that’s when) the cookie crumbled’: (that’s when) a decisive change in a situation occurred
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘round Robin Hood’s barn’
USA, 1797—alludes to legendary outlaw Robin Hood—’barn’ (metaphor for the country as supply of food) was applied to any large space
Read Moremeaning and origin of the phrase ‘like a dog with two tails’
USA, 1822—extremely pleased, delighted—alludes to the belief that a dog wags its tail as a sign of pleasure or happiness
Read Morethe German origin of the phrase ‘to throw the baby out with the bathwater’
mid-19th century—loan translation from German ‘das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten’ (to empty out the child with the bath), early 16th century
Read Moremeaning and early instances of ‘memory lane’
an imaginary path through the nostalgically remembered past—USA, 1876, as ‘memory’s lane’ (‘memory’ in the genitive)
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