# Is this an 1800's British expression? Saying "of last importance" when you actually mean "most important." **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 7, 2025, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-an-1800s-british-expression-saying-of-last-importance-when-you-actually-mean-most-important/1024676 "2025-11-07T20:46:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2025, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-an-1800s-british-expression-saying-of-last-importance-when-you-actually-mean-most-important/1024676/2 "2025-11-07T21:02:17Z")
Active thread on just this (general) topic: > [@Sayings, idioms, and acronyms which seem to indicate the OPPOSITE of what is intended](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sayings-idioms-and-acronyms-which-seem-to-indicate-the-opposite-of-what-is-intended/1024599): > > On another site I was taken a bit aback yesterday when I read that a political ad had been “dropped”–so I immediately wondered who canceled it and why-was it DFT-enabled censorship at work again? A cowardly news service bending over backwards to not embarrass or anger him or his cronies? As I scanned the text of the article, I couldn’t even find any mention of it being stopped much less why, as it just went on about the ad’s content. I then realized that “drop” has somehow come to mean “release… --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-an-1800s-british-expression-saying-of-last-importance-when-you-actually-mean-most-important/1024676)._