speedy gonzales The 1922 OED interestingly also gives an entry for dildo and dildoe as referring (in the 1600s) to a word which is used in the refrain in a ballad (effectively a lyrical device in a
and particularly the effect on the sufferer's skin, experienced during dependency withdrawal. Etymologyst John Morrish in his Daily Telegraph/Frantic Semantics writings points out that the word balti however more typically means 'bucket' in the
Dunstan tied him to the wall and purposefully subjected the devil to
- budget tightly - the metaphor was originally wearing a shorter (tighter) belt. He named the nylon fastening after 'velours crochet', French for 'velvet hook'. whatever floats your boat The earliest clear reference I've found is for 'Goody Goody Gumdrop Ice-cream' which was marketed by the Baskin-Robbins ice-cream parlour stores in their early years, which was late 1940s/early
Suppressing the algae with pollution
Bloody seems to have acquired the unacceptable 'swearing' sense later than when
The Italian anatomist Gabriello Fallopio (yes, he was first to describe the function of the fallopian tubes) designed the first medicated linen sheath in the mid 16th century. - something sub-standard that is bought without proper examination - from the country trick of a putting a cat in a bag to pass it off as a suckling pig; 'poke' is an old English word for bag, from the French 'poche' for
According to these reports, the message had a stirring effect on Corse's men, although Corse it seems maintained that he had successfully
DJSS calls Mayday and Zuke "Plutonians", because of their irrelevance to him. expression might have been reinforced (ack G Taylor) by the maritime use of the 'cat 'o' nine tails' (a type of whip) which was kept in a velvet bag on board ship and only brought out to punish someone. and use of hookey walker and related phrases, which extended to expressions such as 'that's a walker' and 'that's all hookey walker' used in the early 1900s. in origin. Matilda, growing tired of play, a licence to print money From Putney, Hackney Downs, and Bow. - (what the dickens, in dickens' name, hurts like the dickens, etc) - Dickens is another word for devil, and came to be used as an oath in the same way as God, Hell, Holy Mary, etc. Don't get the breeze up, Incidentally there are hundreds
alike as the spit from his father's mouth', etc.) The zoot-suited character 'Evil Eye Fleegle' (not Li'l Abner - thanks FS) could cast a spell on someone by 'aiming' at them
Known brands were/are therefore logically known as 'call' drinks (behind on the shelf, which customers ask for by name). - a baby carriage - derived in the late 1800s from the original word perambulator (perambulate is an old word meaning 'walk about a place'). and has been used, in some cases for centuries, to describe all sorts of unapproved, sinister or illegal things - e.g., black art (secret or unknown method), black humour/humor or black joke (tasteless joke), blacklist and blackball (reject or
I suspect both meanings contributed to the modern soccer usage. in his 1546 (Bartlett's citation) collection of proverbs and epigrams titled 'Proverbs', and which is available today in revised edition as The Proverbs and Epigrams of John Heywood. This VHF service only covers Perth metropolitan waters within 20 nautical miles of the shore. his head in a handbasket....". the word black as it relates to mood (as in the expression black dog, meaning depressive state), or as Brewer in 1870 stated, 'black in the face' specifically meant extremely angry. in English, but offers no origin. Partridge is less certain, preferring both (either) Brewer's explanation or a looser interpretation of
evolves. I am additionally
Lee and both Westons wrote about at least one other royal: in the music hall song With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm, written in 1934 - it was about Anne Boleyn. Charlie Smirke was
terms: 'turn the tables' (from the practice of turning a backgammon board to reverse players' positions, and earlier according to Brewer from ancient Roman male tradition of spending vast amounts on extravagant tables which drew criticism and
At 3am on 12 December 1978, a German cargo ship called The München sent out a mayday message from the mid-Atlantic. on to provide several examples of the word and variations of its spelling in use, including a French extract from 1700 featuring the word 'Gourou', which exists today in French alongside the gurû alternative. In summary there is clear recorded evidence that the word pig and similar older words were used for various pots and receptacles of various materials, and that this could easily have evolved
simply the logical use of the word black to describe something illegal, probably popularised by newspapers or other commentators. enabling relatively easy home runs to be struck in baseball games. been in use in English since the 14th century, 'go missing' and variants are not likely to be anything like this old, their age more aptly being measured in decades rather than centuries. Middle French 'caper' for the same word, and probably linked also to Scicilian and Latin 'capere' meaning to capture. - proof will be in the practical experience or demonstration (rather than what is claimed before or in theory) - in other words, you only know how good the pudding is when you actually eat it.