Search results
May 13, 2009 · The curious and spectacularly dark end lines: “here comes the candle to light you to bed, here comes the chopper to chop off your head…” probably refers to practices at Newgate prison.
Apr 7, 2013 · It’s likely that the Oranges and Lemons nursery rhyme was a way of remembering the topography of London by a widely illiterate population. People would have associated the bells and the churches with what happened in that part of town. Eventually it became a rhyme and there is evidence of it being a dance in 1655.
The rhyme is introduced as a part of O’Brien’s interview of Winston in the context of The Book and The Brotherhood. It seems to a have been given as sign/countersign as an initiation into the Brotherhood, so that one can tell who is a member of the secret society. Sign: Oranges and lemons. Countersign: Say the bells of St. Clement’s.
- By The Same Token
- Get on A Soapbox
- Tomfoolery
- Go Bananas
- Run of The Mill
- Read The Riot Act
- Hands Down
- Silver Lining
- Have Your Work Cut Out
- Through The Grapevine
Bus token? Game token? What kind of token is involved here? Token is a very old word, referring to something that’s a symbol or sign of something else. It could be a pat on the back as a token, or sign, of friendship, or a marked piece of lead that could be exchanged for money. It came to mean a fact or piece of evidence that could be used as proof...
The soapbox that people mount when they get on a soapboxis actually a soap box, or rather, one of the big crates that used to hold shipments of soap in the late 1800s. Would-be motivators of crowds would use them to stand on as makeshift podiums to make proclamations, speeches, or sales pitches. The soap box then became a metaphor for spontaneous s...
The notion of Tom fool goes a long way. It was the term for a foolish person as long ago as the Middle Ages (Thomas fatuus in Latin). Much in the way the names in the expression Tom, Dick, and Harry are used to mean “some generic guys,” Tom fool was the generic fool, with the added implication that he was a particularly absurd one. So the word tomf...
The expression go bananas is slang, and the origin is a bit harder to pin down. It became popular in the 1950s, around the same time as go ape,so there may have been some association between apes, bananas, and crazy behavior. Also, banana is just a funny-sounding word. In the 1920s, people said “banana oil!” to mean “nonsense!”
If something is run of the mill, it’s average, ordinary, nothing special. But what does it have to do with milling? It most likely originally referred to a run from a textile mill. It’s the stuff that’s just been manufactured, before it’s been decorated or embellished. There were related phrases like run of the mine, for chunks of coal that hadn’t ...
When you read someone the riot actyou give a stern warning, but what is it that you would have been reading? The Riot Act was a British law passed in 1714 to prevent riots. It went into effect only when read aloud by an official. If too many people were gathering and looking ready for trouble, an officer would let them know that if they didn’t disp...
Hands downcomes from horse racing, where, if you’re way ahead of everyone else, you can relax your grip on the reins and let your hands down. When you win hands down, you win easily.
The silver lining is the optimistic part of what might otherwise be gloomy. The expression can be traced back directly to a line from Milton about a dark cloud revealing a silver lining, or halo of bright sun behind the gloom. The idea became part of literature and part of the culture, giving us the proverb every cloud has a silver liningin the mid...
The expression you’ve got your work cut out for youcomes from tailoring. To do a big sewing job, all the pieces of fabric are cut out before they get sewn together. It seems like if your work has been cut for you, it should make job easier, but we don’t use the expression that way. The image is more that your task is well defined and ready to be ta...
A grapevine is a system of twisty tendrils going from cluster to cluster. The communication grapevine was first mentioned in 1850s, the telegraph era. Where the telegraph was a straight line of communication from one person to another, the “grapevine telegraph” was a message passed from person to person, with some likely twists along the way.
Oranges and Lemons. " Oranges and Lemons " is a traditional English nursery rhyme, folksong, and singing game which refers to the bells of several churches, all within or close to the City of London. It is listed in the Roud Folk Song Index as No 13190. The earliest known printed version appeared c. 1744.
Dec 15, 2023 · Meaning: Feeling great delight or pride. Origin: A puppet show in the 17th century called ‘Punch and Judy’ featured a puppet named Punch, who killed people and took great joy in doing so. He would feel pleased with himself afterwards, from which the saying ‘pleased as Punch’ was born. Hans Report.
People also ask
Why are the bells on Eastcheap called Oranges & Lemons?
What does it mean if someone can't hold a candle?
Where did the phrase 'pretend not to notice' come from?
Apr 19, 2021 · But it may also have a very dark meaning to its lyrics. The song's lyrics take you on a meandering journey through the various historical churches and bells of 18th Century London, including St. Clements, St. Martins, the Old Bailey, Shoreditch, Stepney and Bow. First officially published in 1744, the song or rhyme itself is thought to predate ...
