Get updates from Word histories via email, on your phone or read them on follow.it on your own custom news page.
You can filter the news from Word histories that get delivered to you using tags or topics or you can opt for all of them. Unsubscription is also very simple.
See the latest news from Word histories below.
Site title: Word histories – “ad fontes!”
Is this your feed? Claim it!
a game in which players must obey a leader’s instructions if, but only if, they are prefaced with the words ‘O’Grady says’—UK, 1917—game invented during World War One as a play-way for conducting physical exercises and drill in the British Army
the earliest occurrences of ‘feet of clay’, used without explicit reference to the Bible, date from the French Revolution (1789-1799) and translate French ‘pieds d’argile’
to be in control of a situation; to be in a dominant position—USA, 1899—originally (USA, 1867) used in reference to hunting game animals
nonsense, rubbish—USA, first decade of the 20th century—probably a euphemism for the noun ‘bullshit’, with the noun ‘dust’ used in the sense of ‘rubbish’, ‘garbage’
1910: a cheap and common watch—hence (from 1922 onwards) used in various phrases referring to silliness, reliability/unreliability, erraticism, cheapness, funniness
