Huh, I’m surprised I’ve never heard that phrase. My family (German Jewish background, in the NYC area since the 50s) definitely does this, but we call it “vestibuling”.
According to these websites, in the 19th century, “brainstorm” meant (with no specification about which dialect) a delirium accompanied with violence. In the 20th century, it changed to meaning a bright idea. Apparently it changed so thoroughly that hardly anyone remembers the old definition:
It was more common in the UK, in that sense; the OED has examples going back to 1861, and newspapers in the States, as noted in your link, really only picked up on it in 1907. That said, I would not discount the possibility that “brainstorm” the mental fit and “brainstorm” the creative exercise are just homophones, not that the one gave way to the other or that the two are related, per se.
(Brainwave was US slang for an idea—and in particular a bright idea—in the early 20th century, immediately prior to and overlapping with the also-US emergence of brainstorm and. The idea that a collection of brain waves might be characterized as a brain storm seems like a distinct possibility.)
But even in the United States, “brainstorm” (homonym or no) was used in a specifically epileptic sense past the 70s, on occasion. And in the UK I can find plenty of examples of, in particular, criminal defendants being said to have “suffered a brainstorm” or politician opponents being accused of metaphorically having a “brainstorm” as an explanation for something they’ve said or done well into the 90s when the other meaning was also well-established.
Green on the outside and Red on the inside?
Is “Watermelon” used as a derogatory term on Barsoom?
Or is it used for somebody who claims to be an environmentalist but is really a Communist?
I’m confused.
This.
And Twinkie.
I in the late 90s early 00s I remember hearing “that sucks” or that blows " on a Disney-based cartoon at least 2-4 times an episode and was like "Wow so that’s ok to say in public now?
Really?
That’s a Thing?
Barely, in the US at least. It’s an accusation Michael Savage used to make all the time.
But I’m curious given this,
how often it comes up in the rest of the world.
ETA
It does,
These days in the USA “red” seems to mean “Republican”. A shift in meaning I still find pretty weird.
Could someone not be a Communist, or genuine communist for that matter, and an environmentalist at the same time? Is it politically impossible?
I think that what is Not a Thing is people who claim to be environmentalists but who want to use the controls necessary to implement it to enact a nefarious totalitarian communism while not really helping the environment. Despite what conservatives might say, that type of watermelon is very much Not a Thing in America since climate scientists don’t really broadcast their social agendas and mainstream liberals aren’t communists.
I guess that it’s possible in theory to have a watermelon party elsewhere in the world, but the idea seldom if ever refers to actual parties that openly mix environmentalism with socialism.
They certainly could. But if there’s a slang term describing them it means there’s quite a few of them, and somebody considers them a problem. That’s what I find surprising.
No. The term exists to pejoratively describe environmentalists as hiding their ‘’‘true anti capitalist agenda’‘’.
The whole ‘X on the outside but Y on the inside’ is, simply, the No, True, Scotsman fallacy.
… whereas I’ve always understood that to mean deserting from the military.
I was gigged for my Irish pins, so I built up some Dutch courage and took French leave over the border, where I caught a Mexican boxing glove.
The reason that German soldiers were referred to derogatorily as “Jerries” was because they wore helmets that looked similar to “jerrys” - British slang for “chamber pot” and probably an abbreviation of jeroboam
So has “oriental” passed from common usage completely? I remember learning here of all places that oriental was for things and Asian for people (e.g. an oriental rug sold by by an Asian shopkeeper). Has that usage gone away?
Why the “No”?. Nothing I said is false. Whoever coined the pejorative clearly felt there were enough of them to be a concern
Nonetheless, the term bint is derogatory and sexist, so it shouldn’t be used in any case.