IDIOM OF THE DAY

[rufusredtail]

BUCKLEYBuckley's chance a forlorn hope; no chance at all Australian & New Zealand informal

i The phrase is often shortened simply to Buckley's. Who or what Buckley was remains uncertain:the name is sometimes said to refer to William Buckley, a convict transported to Australia in 1802 who escaped and lived with the Aborigines for many years, despite dire predications as to his chances of survival

[Speros]

Against the grain

Meaning

Against one's inclination or natural tendency.

Origin

The phrase brings to mind the image of the grain in wood, which, if planed in the wrong direction, will tear rather than lie smoothly. That may not have been in the mind of whoever coined the phrase, as none of the early citations of the phrase refer to wood.

[rufusredtail]

SUSS
on suss  on suspicion of having committed a crime . British informal

i Suss is an abbreviation of suspicion, earlier and more correctly spelled sus. Until its abolition in 1981, a law nicknamed the sus law allowed the police to arrest a person on the suspicion that they were likely to commit a crime.

[Speros]

Mouth-watering

Meaning

Delicious; tasty enough to make you salivate.

Origin

The term mouth-watering has been used since the late 18th century to describe people whose mouth was salivating at the thought of food. The earliest citation that I can find of it describing appetizing food itself is from the mid 19th century, in the US fine arts journal The Southern Literary Messenger, 1847:

"He talks in an unctious mouth-watering way of British oysters and Falernian wine."

Mars, the manufacturers of the fruit sweets Opal Fruits alluded to the phrase in their advertising jingle for the product 'Opal Fruits: made to make your mouth water'. The sweets are sold in the USA as Starburst and, since 1998, they were renamed as that in their original market of the UK and Ireland

[Speros]

The devil to pay

Meaning

Impending trouble or other bad consequences following from one's actions.

Origin

People seem to love ascribing nautical origins to phrases. Here's a good case in point. The 'devil' is a seam between the planking of a wooden ship. Admiral William Henry Smyth defined the term in The Sailor's Word-book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, 1865:

Devil - The seam which margins the waterways on a ship's hull.

'Paying' is the sailor's name for caulking or plugging the seam between planking with rope and tar etc. 'Paying the devil' must have been a commonplace activity for shipbuilders and sailors at sea. This meaning of 'paying' is recorded as early as 1610, in S. Jourdain's Discovery of Barmudas:

Some wax we found cast up by the Sea... served the turne to pay the seames of the pinnis Sir George Sommers built, for which hee had neither pitch nor tarre.

Many sources give the full expression used by seafarers as "there’s the devil to pay and only half a bucket of pitch", or "there’s the devil to pay and no pitch hot".

[Speros]

Life's not all beer and skittles

Meaning

'Beer and skittles' is shorthand for a life of indulgence spent in the pub.

Origin

Skittles, also known as Ninepins, which was the pre-cursor to ten-pin bowling, has been a popular English pub game since the 17th century. The pins are set up in a square pattern and players attempt to knock them down with a ball. It is still played but not so much as previously.

[rufusredtail]

ROPE
GIVE SOMEONE ENOUGH ROPE (OR PLENTY OF ROPE)give a person enough freedom of action to bring about their own downfall.

i The fuller form of this expression is the proverb give a man enough rope asnd he will hang himself, which has been in use in various forms since the mid 17th century.

[rufusredtail]

MOMENT
moment of truth a crisis; a turning point when a decision has to be made or a crisis faced.


i This expression is a translation of the Spanish el momento de la verdad, which refers to the final sword thrust in a bullfight.

[Speros]

Red tape

Meaning

Rigid or mechanical adherence to bureaucratic rules and regulations especially those involving unnecessary paperwork.

Origin

Legal and official documents have been bound with red tape since the 17th century and continue to be so. The first reference I can find to this practice is the 1696-1715 Maryland Laws:

"The Map upon the Backside thereof sealed with his Excellency's Seal at Arms on a Red Cross with Red Tape."

We now usually mean fussy or unnecessary bureaucracy when we refer to 'red tape'. The first record I have of it being used in that sense is from The pleader's guide, 1796. This spoof verse, purporting to be the work of John Surrebutter (a deceased barrister) was a satire on the fussiness of English law. It includes the lines:

Nor would the Fates... Cut the red-tape of thy years.

This is part-way towards a metaphorical usage of the term, albeit still clearly referring to actual lawyer's red-tape. The first entirely figurative usage of 'red-tape' that I can find is in Edward Bulwer-Lytton in Alice, or the Mysteries, 1838:

"The men of more dazzling genius began to sneer at the red-tape minister as a mere official manager of details."

[rufusredtail]

DIE
die hard disappear or change very slowly.

i This expression seems to have been used first of criminals who died resisting to the last on the Tyburn gallows in London. At the battle of Albuera in 1811, during the Peninsular War, William Inglis, commander of the British 57th Regiment of Foot, exhorted his men to 'die hard'; they acted with such heroism that the regiment earned the nickname Die-hards. The name was attached later in the century to various groupings in British politics who were determinedly opposed to change. The word diehard is often used of someone who is stubbornly conservative or reactionary.

[rufusredtail]

WHITE
a white elephant a possession that is useless or troublesome, especially one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of.

i In former times, the rare albino elephant was regarded as holy. It was highly prized by the kings of siam (now Thailand) and its upkeep was extremely expensive. It was apparently the practice for a king of siam to give one of the elephants to a courtier they disliked; the unfortunate recipient would usually be financially ruined by the attempt to maintain the animal.

[Mikeh]

Do unto others as they would do to you, but do it first

[Mikeh]

Just go with the flow  To do what people do and accept things as they are.

I was just pulling your leg. To tease or fool someone when trying to convince them to believe something which is not true as a joke. 

all hat and no cattle   Describing someone who is full of big talk but lacking action, power, or substance; pretentious.

a bit of fluff  A sexually attractive woman.

a dime's worth,  An insignificant amount

a fool and his money are soon parted,  This means that stupid people spend money without thinking about it enough.

all hat and no cattle,  Describing someone who is full of big talk but lacking action, power, or substance; pretentious.

eat humble pie   said when you admit that you were wrong. 

[rufusredtail]

FALL
take the fall recieve blame or punishment, typically in the place of another person.

i In the late 19th-century criminals' slang fall could mean an 'an arrest', and this was later extended to mean ' a term of imprisonment'. From this the us term fall guy meaning 'a scapegoat' developed in the early 20th century.

[rufusredtail]

TENTERHOOK

on tenterhooks in a state of suspense or agiation because of uncertainty about a future event.

i A tenter is a framework on which fabric can be held taut for drying or other treatment during the manufacturing process; in the past tenterhooks were hooks or bent nails fixed in the tenter to hold the fabric in position. The metaphorical use of the phrase for an agitated state of mind dates from the mid 18th century.