The cry was 'Wall-eeeeeeee' (stress on the second syllable) as if searching for a missing person. Additionally I am informed (thanks D Simmons) of the following alternative theory relating to this expression: "... Echo by then had faded away to nothing except a voice, hence the word 'echo' today. The same interface is now available in Spanish at OneLook Tesauro.
Farther back in history the allusion to opening a container to unleash problems is best illustrated in by the 'Pandora's Box' expression from ancient Greek mythology, in which Pandora releases all the troubles of the world from a jar (or box, depending on the interpretation you read) which she was commanded by Zeus not to open. Bun to many people in England is a simple bread roll or cob, but has many older associations to sweeter baked rolls and cakes (sticky bun, currant bun, iced bun, Chelsea bun, etc). According to Chambers again, the adjective charismatic appeared in English around 1882-83, from the Greek charismata, meaning favours given (by God). Let's face it, the House of Commons, home of the expression, is not the greatest example of modern constructive civilised debate and communications. In summary, 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating' has different origins and versions from different parts of Europe, dating back to the 13th or 14th century, and Cervantes' Don Quixote of 1605-15 is the most usually referenced earliest work to have popularised the saying. For example people of India were as far back as the 18th century referred to as black by the ruling British colonials. Little seems to be known about the composers, but Bert Lee was certainly not a young man when he co-wrote Knees Up Mother Brown, and therefore old enough to have experienced Victorian times. Door fastener rhymes with gaspillage. Additionally the 'bring home the bacon' expression, like many other sayings, would have been appealing because it is phonetically pleasing (to say and to hear) mainly due to the 'b' alliteration (repetition). Sprog seems to have been used commonly by the RAF in the 1930s with reference to new recruits, possibly derived from a distortion of 'sprout' (something that is growing), or from either or both of these spoonerisms (inversion of initial letter-sounds): sprocket and cog (reference to being a small part in a big machine) or frog-spawn (frog egg being a possible association to a new recruit or young man).
For a while I reported here the suggestion that Katharine Hepburn uses the phrase, "You go girl, " in the 1957 movie Desk Set. Door fastener (rhymes with "gasp") - Daily Themed Crossword. To the nth degree - to the utmost extent required - 'n' is the mathematical symbol meaning 'any number'. Red tape - bureaucracy, administrative obstruction, time-consuming official processes - from the middle-to-late English custom for lawyers and government officials to tie documents together with red tape. Words that come back in a variety of creative ways. The preference of the 1953 Shorter OED for the words charism and charismata (plural) suggests that popular use of charisma came much later than 1875.
However in the days of paper cartridges, a soldier in a firing line would have 'bitten off' the bullet, to allow him to pour the gunpowder down the barrel, before spitting the ball (bullet) down after the powder, then ramming the paper in as wadding. In larger families or when guests visit, the need for larger pots arose. Door fastener rhymes with gaspacho. The word came into English with this meaning in or before 1798. The cup/dish confusion seems to stem from the closeness of the roots of the words: Old English 'Greal' and Old French 'Graal' meant Cup, and Medieval Latin 'Gradalis' was a Dish or Platter, probably from Latin 'Crater', meaning Bowl.
See more cockney rhyming slang expressions, meanings and origins at the cockney rhyming slang section. In Europe, The Latin term 'Omnes Korrectes' was traditionally marked on students test papers to mean 'all correct'. Flash in the pan - brief, unexpected, unsustainable success - evolved from an earlier slightly different meaning, which appears in 1870 Brewer: an effort which fails to come to fruition, or in Brewer's words: 'all sound and fury, signifying nothing', which he says is based on an old firearms metaphor; ie., the accidental premature ignition of the priming gunpowder contained the the 'pan' (part of an old gun's lock) which would normally ignite the charge in the barrel. Slag - loose woman or treacherous man - the common association is with slag meaning the dross which separates during the metal ore (typically iron) smelting process. The Holy Grail then (so medieval legend has it), came to England where it was lost (somewhat conveniently some might say... ), and ever since became a focus of search efforts and expeditions of King Arthur's Knights Of The Round Table, not to mention the Monty Python team. Door fastener rhymes with gaspésie. Expressions for instance such as 'crying a river', or 'sweating buckets' or 'eating like a horse' are similar cases in point - they are very expressive and striking, and yet probably have no actual single origin - they just evolve quite naturally in day-to-day speech, as did 'operating (or working, or doing anything) in a vacuum'. This is not to say of course that the expression dates back to that age, although it is interesting to note that the custom on which the saying is based in the US is probably very ancient indeed. Italians instead use the expression 'In bocca al lupo', which literally means 'Into the wolf's mouth'... " Incidentally the reply to this is apparently "Crepi il lupo, " or just "Crepi, " - effectively "May the wolf die, " (thanks S Prosapio), which I add for interest rather than for strict relevance to the Break a Leg debate. 'Like the call or waul of a cat'.
The expression 'no pun intended' is generally used as a sort of apology after one makes a serious statement which accidentally includes a pun. Unfortunately there was never a brass receptacle for cannonballs called a monkey. The use of the word clue - as a metaphor based on the ball of thread/maze story - referring to solving a mystery is first recorded in 1628, and earlier as clew in 1386, in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women. After much searching for a suitable candidate, the mother is eventually taken by a lady to a bedroom in her house, whereupon she opens a closet (Brewer definitely says 'closet' and not 'cupboard'), in which hangs a human skeleton. It was built 1754-80 and converted in 1791 to hold the remains of famous Frenchmen; a 'niche' was a small alcove containing a monument to a person's name and deeds.
Black market - illegal trade in (usually) consumer goods, typically arising in times of shortages and also relating to the smuggling and informal cash-sales of goods to avoid tax - there seems no reliable support for the story which claims that the black market term can be traced to Charleston slaves of the 1700s. At some stage between the 14th and 16th centuries the Greek word for trough 'skaphe:' was mis-translated within the expression into the Latin for spade - 'ligo' - (almost certainly because Greek for a 'digging tool' was 'skapheion' - the words 'skaphe:' and 'skapheion' have common roots, which is understandable since both are hollowed-out concave shapes). Trek was earlier trekken in Dutch, the main source language of Afrikaans (of South Africa), when it meant march, journey, and earlier pull or draw (a wagon or cart, etc). Because of the binary nature of computing, memory is built (and hence bought) in numbers which are powers of two: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1, 024. D. dachshund - short-legged dog - the dog was originally a German breed used for hunting badgers. Sackbut - trombone - similar expressions developed in French (saquebutte), Spanish (sacabuche) and Portuguese (saquebuxo), all based on the original Latin 'sacra buccina' meaning 'sacred trumpet'. See for fun and more weather curiosities the weather quiz on this website. The 'pointless' aspect of these older versions of the expression is very consistent with its later use. Cross the Rubicon/crossing the Rubicon - commit to something to the point of no return - the Rubicon was a river separating ancient Italy from Cisalpine Gaul, which was allotted to Julius Caesar.
Interestingly, the 'silly season' originally described the time when newspapers resorted to filling their pages with nonsense while Parliament was in Summer recess, just as they still do today. Incidentally when the Devil's Advocate role was removed from the Vatican canonization process in 1983 a deluge of new saints ensued - over 400 in the subsequent 20 years (equating impressively to more than 800 apparently confirmed evidenced proven real miracles performed by dead people), compared with less than a quarter of that number in the previous 80 years. Wolfgang Mieder's article '(Don't) throw the baby out with the bathwater' (full title extending to: 'The Americanization of a German Proverb and Proverbial Expression', which appears in De Proverbio - Issue 1:1995 - a journal of international proverb studies) seems to be the most popular reference document relating to the expression's origins, in which the German Thomas Murner's 1512 book 'Narrenbeschwörung' is cited as the first recorded use of the baby and bathwater expression. The expression in its various forms is today one of the most widely used proverbs and this reflects its universal meaning and appeal, which has enabled it to survive despite the changing meanings of certain constituent words. This metaphor would have merged quite naturally with the other old sense of the word scrub, referring to an insignificant or contemptible person, alluding to scrub plant or vegetation, being stunted and not particularly tidy. Skeat's 1882 dictionary of etymology references 'tit for tat' in 'Bullinger's Works'.
Cat got your tongue? It is a fascinating phenomenon, which illustrates a crucial part of how languages evolve - notably the influence of foreign words - and the close inter-dependence between language and society. Give your brain some exercise and solve your way through brilliant crosswords published every day! Tit for tat - retribution or retaliation, an exchange insults or attacks - 'tit for tat' evolved from 'tip for tap', a middle English expression for blow for blow, which also meant a trade of verbal insults. Most people will know that bugger is an old word - it's actually as old as the 12th century in English - and that it refers to anal intercourse. Cut and run - get what you want then leave quickly - originally a sailing term, cut the ropes and run before the wind.
Strafe - to shoot from the air at something on the ground - from the German World War I motto 'Gott Strafe England' meaing 'God Punish England'. Early scare-stories and confusion surrounding microwave radiation technology, and the risks of over-cooking food, naturally prompted humorous associations with the mysterious potency of nuclear missiles and nuclear power. Fart - blow-off, emit air from anus, especially noisily - The word fart is derived from Old High German 'ferzan' (pronounced fertsan) from older Germanic roots 'fertan', both of which are clearly onomatopoeic (sounds like what it is), as is the modern-day word, unchanged in English since the 1200s. In the early 1970s everybody else starts using it. The name comes from the Danish words 'leg' and 'godt', meaning 'play well'. The definitions come from Wiktionary, Wikipedia, and WordNet. A supposed John Walker, an outdoor clerk of the firm Longman Clementi and Co, of Cheapside, London, is one such person referenced by Cassells slang dictionary. Line - nature of business - dates back to the scriptures, when a line would be drawn to denote the land or plot of tribe; 'line' came to mean position, which evolved into 'trade' or 'calling'. A man may well bring a horse to the water, but he cannot make him drink without he will/You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink/You can take a horse to water.
Apparently (thanks J Neal, Jun 2008) the expression was in literal use in the 1980s metalworking industry, UK Midlands, meaning 'everything' or 'all', referring to the equipment needed to produce a cast metal part. All rights reserved. Here is Terry's detailed and fascinating explanation of the history of the 'K' money slang word, which also contains a wonderful historical perspective of computers. Caesar, or Cesare, Borgia, 1476-1507, was an infamous Italian - from Spanish roots - soldier, statesman, cardinal and murderer, brother of Lucrezia Borgia, and son of Pope Alexander VI. Interestingly, in the same year Dowson also gave us 'the days of wine and roses', meaning past days of pleasure, in his poem 'Vitae Summa Brevis': ". The notable other less likely explanations for the use of the word nut in doughnut are: associations with nutmeg in an early recipe and the use or removal of a central nut (mechanical or edible) to avoid the problem of an uncooked centre. Another version, also published in 1855 but said to date to 1815 begins, 'hana, mana, mona, mike..
Ham - amateur or incompetent - ham in this context is used variously, for example, ham actor, radio ham (amateur radio enthusiast), ham it up (over-act), ham-fisted (clumsy). Cop/copper - policeman - Some suggest this is an acronym from 'Constable On Patrol' but this is a retrospectively applied explanation. Many people seem now to infer a meaning of the breath being metaphorically 'baited' (like a trap or a hook, waiting to catch something) instead of the original non-metaphorical original meaning, which simply described the breath being cut short, or stopped (as with a sharp intake of breath).