"Well, at the end of the day, he is still a goal scorer" At the end of which day ? When did 'at the end of the day' come to mean 'finally' or 'whatever the argument' or 'when all's said and...
"With his rival getting a lead of four, his chances of winning the jockey's championship have gone west" said a commentator. Why do we say 'gone west' in such a context? What's the...
We think now of 'pretty' as 'pleasing to the eye' but we also say 'pretty' in 'pretty good', 'pretty tough' and so on, and once said that something cost 'a pretty penny' meaning 'a lot of money'. When...
"A good deal of brandy was consumed" When and how did 'a good deal' come to mean 'a substantial quantity' and 'deal' by itself to mean 'a lot' or 'quite a lot', as in 'He is a deal of...
John Smith wrote a valid will in these terms "I give to my wife Gladys Smith £50,000 and to my stepson James Jones I give the residue of my estate". He was divorced from his wife...
'Back in the day' seems to be an American expression. Is it? Or is it an an English expression which became obsolete in Britain? When was it first recorded ?
Somebody in The Times asks when the practice of keeping a dog in the house, rather than in a kennel, started. Obviously there have been lap dogs for centuries, but it got me wondering when any and...
Has anyone ever found an explanation for apparently inexplicable migration ? I'm thinking of humming birds that migrate as far as Canada and seabirds that migrate thousands of miles almost from one...
Is their a verb meaning 'to hold someone hostage' or a noun for what one policeman, quoted in an American paper, called 'a hostage situation' ? ( Officials like 'situation' . I'm waiting for 'a fire...
What are the rules for giving notice on a month to month tenancy; an assured tenancy of six months which has been allowed to run on for about 10 months after the fixed term expired? If the landlord...
Do state schools still have to teach religion ? The previous law, of 1944, was that they had to have such teaching, which had to be broadly Christian in character, but the Act has been repealed. Which...
My computer always shows '[user name] failed to connect to IMAP server' for my main user name. This doesn't trouble me much as I rarely used that name, preferring my other name, but how should I solve...
If a person were to take out a policy payable on death would the payment out on death be treated as part of their estate and taxable ? If not, could such a policy be useful to pay all or part of any...
Said to be the largest timber structures in Europe , Dunston Staithes were built as wooden quays for loading coal onto ships. What timber were they made from? Presumably it had to be tough but...
Barclays issue customers with a PIN sentry for online banking. The customer enters the last four digits of their debit card into this hand-held device, followed by their PIN. The device then generates...
When I send a photo by e-mail it is vast, far larger than I want, so much so that the recipient has to scroll across to see it bit by bit ! How do I adjust the size of the image sent ?
