“All of a sudden” is a common phrase. It also seems to be a bit archaic. Nobody says “Once upon a time” unless they’re reading a fairy tale. We say “Once” or “One time” in normal conversation. So why is “All of a sudden” used as much as “Suddenly”? It sounds a bit 19th Century to me.
And “broad daylight”, as in “The robbery happened in broad daylight.” It’s meant to show the audacity of the perpetrator, since he commits his crime when he is likely to be seen. But “broad daylight” technically means that it was a bright sunny day. We don’t say, “I went for a walk in the broad daylight.” We say, “I went for a walk in the sun(shine).”
Some people say “one fell swoop”. (My dad liked to turn it around and say “one swell foop”. ) How many of them know what “fell” means in this case? People know what the phrase means, but I haven’t heard anyone say “It was a fell day.”
Wow is short for God’s wounds, so that’s pretty archaic. Gadzooks and zounds have both dropped out of favor, but wow is going strong. I personally use it a few dozen times on a good day.
One I particularly like is scuttlebutt. That came from punching a hole (scuttling) the butt of a barrel of water. That barrel was the source of fresh water on a ship, and the sailors would often gossip while standing around drinking from it, just like today’s office water cooler! It’s one of the few cool word origin stories that is actually true (probably).
People often mistake me for a damn, dirty hippy. Of course, it might also be the long hair, tye-dye T-shirt, Grateful Dead music and stickers in and on the car and incense burning in the shop. And maybe the 3-day growth and body odor.
But I don’t wear sandles or smoke that reefer!
Overheard in the public restroom: “That’ll leave a skidmark all the way to the treatment plant!”
“Please” doesn’t make any sense taken by itself. It comes from “if it pleases you,” which DOES make sense. Very few people, if any, still use the entire phrase, however.
out-of-doors (for “outdoors”). Sounds quaint, silly, and old-fashioned.
aeroplane (for “airplane”). The first time I saw this (way back when I was a wee one), I thought it was baby talk for “airplane” (one of those cutesy juvenile words like “kittycat” or “puppydog”).
And “goodbye” is short for “God be with you/ye” (or so I’ve heard). One wonders if Michael Newdow ever says “goodbye” to people.
The variation *aeroplane * is listed in my dictionary as the preferred option to the Americanised airplane. It’s much more consistent with the other English usages of aerodynamics, aeronautical, aerobatic, aerospace, aerosol etc.
Well, last time I was visiting my dad he asked me to get him a Coke out of the icebox.
Hold your horses probably falls into this category. Except, of course, that I’ve had occasion to use it in the last year or two, telling my friend to keep her horses still while we were saddling them.
’Round Robin Hood’s Barn was going the long way; Sherwood Forest was a big place.
When I asked my dad how to get a loan, he said to go, hat in hand to the loan officer of my bank. He meant “go humbly.”
Pushing up daisies means dead and buried. “We’ll be pushin’ up daisies before we see that happen!”
If a guy was injured, he was stove up. I think this refers to barrel staves, in some way I don’t understand.
Close, but no cigar (pronounced SEE-gar) means almost. In my dad’s day, a carnival would include a rig where a customer could pay to whack a lever with a great big hammer. The lever would send a weight up a wire to strike a bell. The prize was a cigar. If the barker had a bit of a crowd, he’d step on something to tighten the wire, so the weight would actually hit the bell. If not, the weight stopped short, and the barker lamented, “Awww, close but no see-gar.”
I was, maybe, ten years old when a schoolteacher told us about with bells on. A horse-drawn wagon or sleigh, she said, would have bells on the horses’ gear. If something broke, and you had to get help with the repair, you’d give some, or all of the bells to the rescuer. So, if you were optimistic about a trip, you’d say, “We’ll be there with bells on!”
My dad used to do the same thing. Your dad isn’t from Oregon, is he? I think I know all of my brothers.
I know what it means. but the only place I’ve seen it used (other than the famous swoop) is in Henley’s poem Invictus: “In the fell clutch of circumstance. . .”
Or noting “fell deeds,” which I don’t think refers to crooked real estate contracts (but could).
“I was as tired as all get out.”
“He really took a shine to her.”
“They were yelling bloody murder.”
“Well, you know what they say…” - I think this phrase has been beaten down so many times that we have finally left it in the past.
“Lock, stock and barrel” - We are all more urbanized, and this has helped limit the number of times you’ll hear this.
Similar: “…til the cows come home…”
We still “dial” telephone numbers and listen for the phone to “ring” (few phones today actually use a bell that physically rings anymore). We still buy music from “record” stores.
Iconclast that I am, I still have a rotary phone. (Okay, I haven’t plugged it in yet because I can’t be arsed to go get a new cord for it; but I did use it regularly at my previous residence. And I do still have the cordless and corded push-button phones. But I have a rotary! )
“Aeroplane” is surely just a British (and Australian etc) vs American thing. Nobody says “airplane” over here, unless they’re talking about the disaster movie from the 1970s.
“By and large” is fairly archaic, and I bet very few people that use it know what it meant originally.
Not according to the Oxford English Dictionary. “Zounds” is from “God’s wounds,” and “Gadzooks” also is a similar construction (from “God’s hooks” (hooks = hands)).
For archaic phrases, there’s the lovely “Have you been vaccinated with a phonograph needle.” Not only are phonograph needles obsolete, but “vaccination” is also no longer being used (since technically, a vaccination comes from cow serum, like for something like smallpox).
) How many of them know what “fell” means in this case? People know what the phrase means, but I haven’t heard anyone say “It was a fell day.”