I haven't done this for awhile, although I should--Even four years on, I still hear new phrases, and if I don't write them down I will forget them. So new phrases I've heard in the past week:
"Good innings" (as in "he had a good innings") -- a long and good life. (In cricket, as in baseball, an "innings" is the time one team is at bat.)
"Hang fire" (as in "hang fire until tomorrow") -- the delay between pulling the trigger and the bullet firing. Generally, this delay is not noticeable, but if there is a problem with the powder then it might be a few seconds -- just long enough for someone to open the gun and get a shattered bullet to the face. This expression just means to wait for a while.
damp squib (as in, "Well that was a damp squib") -- a squib is a small explosive, similar to dynamite, that miners used to break coal from the rock. If it got wet, it wouldn't ignite--hence a "damp squib" is anything that doesn't meet expectations. More interestingly, however, is that the film industry started using squibs to simulate explosions, and then switched to compressed gas as it was safer -- but referred to that as a "squib" as well. Now squib is a term for anything that expels gas quickly -- including the mechanism is an air bag. :-)
In a fug -- almost self-explanatory, a "fug" is a hot, stale, or suffocating atmosphere, and "in a fug" is feeling poorly.
totally chocka -- from the term "chock-a-block" meaning completely full. (I love when idioms give rise to other idioms.) While its origins are unclear, "chock" seems to come from the term "choke" and was used to indicate when a port was so full, nobody could move. The "block" refers to block and tackle, when a sail was raised to its fullest extent there was no more free rope and the blocks would jam tightly together.
Compassion fatigue -- Not an British expression at all, I first heard this one from Aung San Suu Kyi, and means "a gradual lessening of compassion over time." It was first diagnosed in nurses in the 1950s.
"Good innings" (as in "he had a good innings") -- a long and good life. (In cricket, as in baseball, an "innings" is the time one team is at bat.)
"Hang fire" (as in "hang fire until tomorrow") -- the delay between pulling the trigger and the bullet firing. Generally, this delay is not noticeable, but if there is a problem with the powder then it might be a few seconds -- just long enough for someone to open the gun and get a shattered bullet to the face. This expression just means to wait for a while.
damp squib (as in, "Well that was a damp squib") -- a squib is a small explosive, similar to dynamite, that miners used to break coal from the rock. If it got wet, it wouldn't ignite--hence a "damp squib" is anything that doesn't meet expectations. More interestingly, however, is that the film industry started using squibs to simulate explosions, and then switched to compressed gas as it was safer -- but referred to that as a "squib" as well. Now squib is a term for anything that expels gas quickly -- including the mechanism is an air bag. :-)
In a fug -- almost self-explanatory, a "fug" is a hot, stale, or suffocating atmosphere, and "in a fug" is feeling poorly.
totally chocka -- from the term "chock-a-block" meaning completely full. (I love when idioms give rise to other idioms.) While its origins are unclear, "chock" seems to come from the term "choke" and was used to indicate when a port was so full, nobody could move. The "block" refers to block and tackle, when a sail was raised to its fullest extent there was no more free rope and the blocks would jam tightly together.
Compassion fatigue -- Not an British expression at all, I first heard this one from Aung San Suu Kyi, and means "a gradual lessening of compassion over time." It was first diagnosed in nurses in the 1950s.
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