Common Phrases: And the Amazing Stories Behind Them
Max Cryer
Language: English
Pages: 320
ISBN: 1620875810
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Did you know that the former host of Today, Jane Pauley, claims to have coined the term “bad hair day,” or that a CBS engineer named Charley Douglass invented the name and use of “canned laughter” for television, or that “cold turkey” as a term for quitting something immediately was popularized by the novel and movie (starring Frank Sinatra) The Man with the Golden Arm? Here you’ll learn the origins of phrases like:
• Credibility gap
• Ginormous
• Metrosexual
• The Mile High Club
• My lips are sealed
• The opera’s not over until the fat lady sings
• Supermarket
• Supermodel
• There’s no accounting for taste
• Thick as thieves
• And hundreds more!
For anyone who loves language, this book will “take the cake.”
nevertheless were inclined to agree with some Communist principles. (The) female of the species is more deadly than the male From Rudyard Kipling (1911): When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride, He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside. But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail. For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. Few and far between Often heard in weather reports as an adjunct to, or substitute for
O’Donahue’s remark, one of the most publicized was seven years after Elvis died, when Gore Vidal repeated the line—this time about the death of Truman Capote. (A) good innings Obviously connected to cricket—an innings being the period the batsman has his turn at batting. So, a good innings is one in which many runs are clocked up. The expression remained in cricket parlance until 1837, when Charles Dickens in Pickwick Papers used it in another context referring to someone making a success
This may have less to do with safety than with flavor and conservation. Northern oysters spawn during the warm months (May, June, July, August), and their texture and flavor is not as satisfying during this period. Apart from that, leaving them alone during warm months helps sustain the future oyster population. Sophisticated techniques of farming and refrigeration have gone a long way to resolve these issues, so in general farmed oysters are available and can be eaten in all months with or
Punch” in a private letter in 1813, and then put the expression into the public eye in 1818. This was in a collection of satiric poems from Paris supposedly written by the fictional Fudge family, who were quite unafraid of wide political generali-sations on the situation in Europe. Moore’s letter to Lord Castelreagh (from “Phil Fudge”) tells us: That Poland, left for Russia’s lunch Upon the sideboard snug reposes While Saxony’s as pleased as Punch, And Norway ‘on a bed of roses’ That, as
“streamlining operations in response to market forces” (meaning people are going to be fired); “take out” (bomb or otherwise destroy); and “ethnic cleansing” (genocide). (A) week is a long time in politics The line is attributed to British Prime Minister Sir Harold Wilson and there is little doubt that he actually created it, although there is no certainty about when he said it. Even Sir Harold himself wasn’t sure. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, while firmly allocating the