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The oldest reference to any "* ruin a hobby" I found is from the September 1985 Cincinnati Magazine: Nothing will ruin a hobby more effectively than the feeling that your spouse resents it. An …

The Finnish saying "vaikeuksien kautta voittoon" has been translated directly as: "Vaikeuksien kautta voittoon." Translation: "Through difficulties into victory." Notes: A Finnish form …

It's certainly valid to say "flogging a dead horse" to mean "selling a dead horse", but "flogging a dead horse" is an idiom meaning you're doing something pointless: whipping a dead horse won't make i …

The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2008) says: good people noun a person who can be trusted and counted on US, 1891 Via the American Dialect Society mailing list a …

FumbleFingers explains the meaning well, here's some extra notes. I also noticed a fair number of citations from the navy. 18th century The original phrase was "no more chance than a cat in hell wit …

Origin Gas cookers began to replace wood-burners around 1915, and the actual phrase was used by Hollywood radio comedians around December 1939, and then appropriated by gas companies to promote gas c …

To get someone's goat is make them annoyed or irritated. But what is the goat and why does getting it annoy them? When and where does the phrase come from? What's the first known use?

"Put two and two together and getting four" is from at least since 1816, see my answer on this similar Q&A. "Put two and two together and getting five" is from at least 1859. From The New England fa …

There's nothing offensive about the KISS principle itself, despite the last S being humourously inserted in the acronym to make a full word. Anyway, keeping it simple by saying "keep it simple" certa …

This is an American phrase, first recorded in the May 1922 edition of Harpers Magazine: "Mr. Roberts knows his onions, all right." According to World Wide Words, this had nothing to do with any …

New research suggests the nine was just an arbitrary number. A recent discovery of a whole six yards of this "Holy Grail among word sleuths" suggests the modern phrase is an example of "phrase inflati …

Summary Spill the beans was used in horse-racing in St. Louis, MO, as early as 1902 and meant "to cause an upset". By 1907 it was being used with a similar meaning in baseball in other states. 190 …

Some suggestions: Can't see the wood for the trees Has their priorities wrong Focusing on the trivial Wasting time on the trivial

An old favourite is "lo!" as in "lo and behold!" but also used on its own. It has been around since the first millennium and was also used in the epic poem Beowulf. See also Moby Dick for plenty of …

The following was used in a radio broadcast (The Adventures of Harry Lime, 14th December 1951, episode 20 “An Old Moorish Custom”) as Harry was hit on the back of his head with a rifle butt by a giant …