In Cockney rhyming slang, apples and pears is a synonym for “stairs,” and dustbin lids means kids. Plus, sniglets are clever coinages for things we don’t already have words for. Any guesses what incogsneeto means? It’s the act of trying to hide your...
That sputtering noise when someone sticks out their tongue, puts their lips together, and blows is called a raspberry. No one knows the origin of this slang term, although it may have to do with that pileup of consonants colliding in the middle of...
Steven in Cavendish, Vermont, remembers this saying from his Cockney grandfather: There I was on the dog and bone, with me mate Charlie, when my trouble and strife took a tumble on the apples and pears, and I couldn’t Adam and Eve it. It’s a bit of...
On The Great British Baking Show (its US name; it’s called the Great British Bake Off in the UK, but bake-off is trademarked in the US), a contestant confessed he had not a Scooby Doo about how to make a particular recipe. By that he meant he had...
If you’re telling porkies, you’re telling lies. This phrase is from British rhyming slang, where the term pork pie substitutes for lie. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Porkies = Lies” I just learned the word porkies. You probably...
A woman in Perote, Alabama, wonders about the phrase happy as Larry, meaning very happy. This expression is commonly heard in Britain and Australia. It may derive from a jocular reference to the biblical Lazarus, who presumably would have been happy...