Phrases and sayings

1. Phrase in the offing meaning just entering or leaving a port.

• e.g They could see that the ship was waiting in the offing.

2. Say cheese was devised by the American politician Joseph Davies. Say cheese use imperatively to elicit a smile from someone for a photography by their saying 'cheese' (the vowel of which, when pronounced as is usual in English, forces a somewhat smile-shaped mouth).

3. Spruce up means:

1. To dress or arrange smartly, elegantly and neatly.
2. To refresh, revamp; to freshen or improve something, especially its appearance.

4. The hair of the dog refers to the belief that drinking alcohol will cure a hangover.

5. The expression Bunny boiler derives from the 1987 thriller film Fattal Attraction directed by Adrian Lyne and stars Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer.

Bunny boiler was inspired by a scene in the movie where a scorned woman (Glenn Close), seeking revenge on her ex-lover (Michael Douglas), places his beloved family pet in a pot of boiling water when he is away from the house.

Bunny boiler meaning an obsessive and dangerous former lover who stalks the person who spurned them.  Bunny boiler also meaning an excessively obsessive girlfriend or boyfriend who reacts in an extreme way to ending a relationship.

6. Flotsam and jetsam were

1. The debris remaining after a shipwreck.
2. The collection of miscellaneous items or fragments of little importance.
3. People considered to be of little worth
• e.g. The flotsam and jetsam of society were at the night club. 

7. A dead ringer was originally a horse substituted in order to gain advantage in a race. Dead ringer also meaning someone or something that very closely resembles another; someone or something easily mistaken for another.

• e.g He is a dead ringer for his grandfather at that age.

8. Oranges got their name from the Middle Eastern name 'norange'. Oranges originated in South-east Asia and when they arrived in Persia and Spain they were given the names 'narang' and 'naranja' respectively. As they got nearer to England, and hence nearer to requiring a name in English, they lost the 'n'. This on happened their journey through France, where they were known as 'pomme d'orenge'.

9. Take the gilt off the gingerbread meaning remove an item's most attractive qualities.

10. Dressed to the nines' derives from dressing well, in one's best clothes.

11. Umbrage was a shady area.

12. Beyond the pale derives from the outer limits of a settlement. The phrase inspired from pale, a jurisdiction under a given authority; often held by one nation in another country, hence suggesting that anything outside their control was uncivilised. It was in use by the mid-17th century. The phrase may be a reference to the general sense of boundary, but is often understood to refer to the English Pale in Ireland. In the nominally English territory of Ireland, only the pale fell genuinely under the authority of English law, hence the terms within the Pale and beyond the pale.

13. Lock, stock and barrel derives from the parts of a flintlock musket. The phrase meaning a thing in its entirety, with nothing omitted.

• They want to buy the whole thing, lock, stock and barrel.

14. The first person described as a living legend was Florence Nightingale. Florence Nightingale (12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a celebrated English nurse, wtiter and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night. An Anglican, Nightingale believed that God had called her to be a nurse.

15. Humble pie was a variant of 'umble pie', i.e a pie made from innards. In medieval times the pie was often served to lower-class people. Although 'umbles' and the modern word 'humble' are etymologically unrelated, each word has appeared both with and without the initial 'h' after the Middle Ages until the 19th Century.

16. Weasel words originated from the supposed habits of weasels sucking eggs. Weasel word is a word used to qualify a statement so as to make it potentially misleading.

"Weasel words are words that suck all of the life out of the words next to them just as a weasel sucks an egg and leaves the shell" - Century Magazine, quoted in Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (New York: Facts on File Publications,1987).

17. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year was the text on the first Christmas card. The first commercial Christmas cards were commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in London in 1843 and featured an illustration by John Callcott Horsley.

18. Saved by the bell meaning saved by a last minute intervention. This is boxing slang that came into being in the latter half of the 19th century. A boxer who is in danger of losing a bout can be 'saved' from defeat by the bell that marks the end of a round. The earliest reference to this that I can find is in the Massachusetts newspaper The Fitchburg Daily Sentinel, February 1893:

"Martin Flaherty defeated Bobby Burns in 32 rounds by a complete knockout. Half a dozen times Flaherty was saved by the bell in the earlier rounds."

19. The sorts in out of sorts were printer's type blocks. It actually meaning irritable or somewhat unwell, with vague medical symptoms.

20. The phrase Salad Days was coined by William Shakespeare. It was taken from the play Anthony and Cleopatra written by Shakespeare:

"My salad days, When I was green in judgment, cold in blood, To say as I said then!"

The phrase is now used to refer to one's days of youthful inexperience.

21. Boxing Day got its name from the giving of gifts in boxes at Christmas.

22. The first Jumbo was an elephant in Barnum's circus in 1882. The giant elephant's name has spawned the common word 'jumbo', meaning large in size.

23. The expression Double Dutch derives from the British difficulty in understanding Dutch. The English, historically, found Dutch (albeit a fellow Western Germanic language) particularly difficult to understand so anything that was completely incomprehensible would be double Dutch, i.e. twice as hard as Dutch. (Note that historically, 'Dutch' could refer to German dialects, as well.)

24. Booby prize meaning A prize or status, often unwelcome, awarded as a joke or disincentive to the loser of a contest or for poor performance.

• e.g At the end of the conference, they awarded him with a rubber chicken as a booby prize for complaining the loudest.

25. An inkling was a faint hearing of one's own name. It also meaning A slight suspicion or hint.

• e.g Featuring a prominent and unique opening chord, the song's success provided the first inkling that The Beatles were not the one-hit wonder some had suggested when they first came to America. —A Hard Day's Night (song)

Another meaning for inkling was inclination or desire.

source: www.phrases.org.uk, wikipedia