In the early 1700s, English critic and playwright John Dennis devised a new method of simulating the sound of thunder for his play Appius and Virginia. The play was deemed a failure and its run at the Drury Lane Theatre was cancelled but Dennis’s invention caught on and was used in other productions without his permission, prompting him to protest. His exact words are unconfirmed but it is generally accepted that he said something to the affect of: “They stole my thunder!”
Category: Everyday
everyday life
‘Wowser’ is a delightful word with an interesting background, though its ultimate origin is unknown.
The word first appeared in print in 1899, in the Australian journal Truth, and was instantly popular in Australia. It rapidly spread to New Zealand, where it remains in use, and then eventually arrived in England, possibly brought by the Australian troops who served there during World War I.
The American writer and editor H. L. Mencken liked “wowser” and attempted to introduce it to the United States. He used the word frequently in American Mercury, the literary magazine he edited.
Despite Mencken’s efforts, however, the term never became particularly popular in American English; it is used occasionally, but it never truly caught on.
The original phrase is: Word is Bond
it was intended to be used to affirm ones promise.
‘Wheedle’ has been a part of the English lexicon since the mid-17th century, though no one is quite sure how the term made its way into English. (It has been suggested that the term may have derived from an Old English word that meant ‘to beg,’ but this is far from certain.)
Once established in the language, however, ‘wheedle’ became a favorite of some of the language’s most illustrious writers. ‘Wheedle’ and related forms appear in the writings of Wordsworth, Dickens, Kipling, Dryden, Swift, Scott, Tennyson, and Pope, among others.
The first definition of ‘two-bit’ makes its etymology obvious: it is derived from the noun ‘two bits.’ However, ‘two bits’ is an interesting phrase because it actually means ‘the value of a quarter of a dollar.’
There is no such thing as a single bit, at least not anymore. The now obsolete Spanish dollar was composed of eight reals, or eight bits, so a quarter of the dollar equaled two bits.
The phrase ‘two bits’ carried over into U.S. usage, though there’s no bit coin in U.S. currency.
‘Two bits’ first appeared in print in English in 1730 (and later developed the figurative sense of ‘something of small worth or importance’), followed in 1802 by its adjectival relative. These days, though, the adjective has far surpassed the noun in popularity.