Language Café

Definition: Starting from the beginning.Origin: According to Wikitionary, this phrase may possibly stem from childrens games, or more specifically, the board game Snakes and Ladders or hopskotch. In the game of Snakes and Ladders, for example, if a player ends up landing on a square with a snake on it, they'll be sent backwards, sometimes even as far back as square one

Definition: To unfairly alter the conditions or rules of a procedure during its course.Origin: The figurative use alludes to the perceived unfairness in changing the goal one is trying to achieve after the process one is engaged in (e.g. a game of football) has already started.

Definition: To examine something in great detail.Origin: It refers to the treatment for lice. The adults are killed with a lice shampoo or other solution. But the eggs or nits remain glued to individual shafts of hair. A fine-tooth comb is used to comb them out.

Definition: A significant severance package from the employer if the employee loses their job.Origin: The term originated in Britain in the mid-1960s.

Definition: A means of estimation made according to a rough and ready practical rule, not based on science or exact measurement.Origin: The 'rule of thumb' has been said to derive from the belief that English law allowed a man to beat his wife with a stick so long as it was no thicker than his thumb. Erroneous though.

Definition: The word now refers to someone who is unfairly blamed by others for problems. 替罪羊Origin: The concept comes originally from the Bible in Leviticus, in which a goat is designated to be cast into the desert with the sins of the community.

Definition: A situation or information that is unpleasant but must be accepted.Origin: In the latter half of the 17th century, it appears this phrase first started out simply as "a pill to swallow," and then afterwards the adjectives "hard" and "bitter" were added to the front of it.

Definition: To reveal a secret carelessly or by mistake.Origin: The original theory of "let the cat out of the bag" is that unscrupulous sellers would sell the "pig" in a bag, but instruct the buyer not to open it until they get home, lest the pig escape. The buyer would carry a wiggling bag all the way home, only to have it revealed when opened that they had received a feral cat instead of a piglet. A whip was also nicknamed to be "the cat" in the Navy. The whip/cat would be taken out of the bag whenever someone had to be disciplined.

Definition: To decide to do something difficult or unpleasant that one has been putting off or hesitating over. To be in an unpleasant situation.Origin: It is often stated that it is derived historically from the practice of having a patient clench a bullet in his or her teeth as a way to cope with the extreme pain of a surgical procedure without anesthetic, though evidence for biting a bullet rather than a leather strap is thin.

Definition: Tears or expressions of sorrow that are insincere.Origin: The expression comes from an ancient anecdote that crocodiles weep for the victims they are eating. A collection of proverbs attributed to Plutarch suggests that the phrase "crocodile tears" was well known in antiquity: comparing the crocodile's behaviour to people who desire or cause the death of someone, but then publicly cry about them.