What's the origin of the idiom "to be left holding the bag"?
Mar 10, 2017 · Left holding the bag - It actually dates back to the middle of the eighteenth century in Britain. The original version was to give somebody the bag to hold. You can imagine a criminal gang, about to be confronted by the authorities, telling the most stupid — or expendable — member of their company to hold on to the swag while they took ...
Origin of "old bag"? - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange
old bag noun. an unattractive or unloveable old woman, UK 1949. Disparaging; possibly a variant of OLD BAT, cognisant of OLD BAG (elderly prostitute) which itself may derive from OLD BAT. Ray Puxley, writing in 1992, suggests this may be rhyming slang, formed on 'hag'. an elderly, slatternly prostitute; hence pejorative for a younger prostitute
Expression: Bag of hammers - English Language & Usage Stack …
May 17, 2013 · In recent decades, bag of hammers is almost exclusively American (where it's normally used to mean dumb, stupid), and bag of spanners is British (invariably used to mean ugly). Note that the crazy , mad sense for hammers is relatively uncommon - that's less than 30 results in total for both collocations, whereas dumb as a bag of hammers has a ...
orthography - Free stuff - "swag" or "schwag"? - English Language ...
Earlier senses of "bulky bag" (c.1300) and "big, blustering fellow" (1580s) may represent separate borrowings from the Scandinavian source. Stuff We All Get is a later "backronym". The first schwag as promo stuff I heard was stickers and so on given out by Flickr mid last decade, as their fun variation of swag .
What is the etymology of "cornhole"? - English Language & Usage …
cornhole synonymous with "do anal intercourse" by 1930s, apparently the reference is to a game played in the farming regions of the Ohio Valley in the U.S. from 19c., in which players take turns throwing a small bag full of feed corn at a raised platform with a hole in it. Does the game's name really predate the word's other meaning(s)? Where ...
what is the meaning of "bag the job" - English Language & Usage …
Sep 16, 2014 · Etymonline, in discussing bag, gives a hint of that possible derivation Many figurative senses, such as the verb meaning "to kill game" (1814) and its colloquial extension to "catch, seize, steal" (1818) are from the notion of the game bag (late 15c.) into which the product of the hunt was placed.
Why is a woman's purse called a "pocketbook"?
Pocketbook is in the same, um, bag. It’s a perfectly good word—maybe even a better word for her than handbag if she, like me, slings the thing over her shoulder." It’s a perfectly good word—maybe even a better word for her than handbag if …
Idiomatic expression or word for a very heavy thing
So, "a bag of bricks" would not be the equivalent of a common idiom, but would be more likely recognized from this commonly used bit of banter. – user79850 Commented Jul 25, 2014 at 2:43
prepositions - When should I use "in" or "on"? - English Language ...
When the preposition indicates the position of the object it is a bit easier to decide which one to use, but as it requires thinking from me, I still say things like "I put the bill in the fridge", "my pencil is on my bag", etc, even though if I think about it, I would know how to say it correctly.
Is it right/appropriate to say "double bag it?"
Aug 6, 2013 · This is a fairly standard phrase (although it would usually be hyphenated: "double-bag it, please.") However, almost every phrase you can imagine has, at one time or another, been given a sexual/jokey connotation, and so the "wearing two condoms at …