Unfair behavior. The term comes
from boxing, where the
Marquess of Queensberry rules, formulated
in
1865,
prohibit striking
an
opponent there. It began to be used
figuratively
in the late nineteenth century
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bells and whistles
Extra fancy features, extravagant frills. The term dates from the second half of the 1900s, and it may allude to the features of a fair- ground organ.
It has been applied to products, such as a computer or automo- bile, and also to services. A business columnist
in the NewYork Times, describing Cathay Airlines’s first-class amenities
such as a full-size
bed and an on-demand entertainment system, wrote, “So what do business travelers have to say about
all the bells and whistles?
Not a whole lot; their focus is on time management”
(Sept. 28, 2004).
bells and whistles
Extra fancy features, extravagant frills. The term dates from the second half of the 1900s, and it may allude to the features of a fair- ground organ.
It has been applied to products, such as a computer or automo- bile, and also to services. A business columnist
in the NewYork Times, describing Cathay Airlines’s first-class amenities
such as a full-size
bed and an on-demand entertainment system, wrote, “So what do business travelers have to say about
all the bells and whistles?
Not a whole lot; their focus is on time management”
(Sept. 28, 2004).
bellow like a (wounded) bull, to
To scream in outrage. The simile is almost 2,500 years old, from the time of the Greek poet Aeschylus, who wrote, “He bellowed like a bull whose throat has just been cut.” Strictly speaking this cliché is a tautology, since to bellow means “to roar as a bull,” and has done so since the era of Middle English. Shakespeare wrote, “Jupiter became a bull and bellow’d” (TheWinter’s Tale, 4.3).
believe one’s own eyes, one cannot
One finds it hard to trust one’s own perception or senses. This expression of incredulity dates at least from the seventeenth century, and has been a cliché since the late nineteenth cen- tury. “Believe it tho’ I saw it myself, I cannot” appeared in Bartholomew Robinson’s Latin and English Adages (1621).
belle of the ball, the
The most beautiful or most popular person pre- sent. The word belle, for “beautiful woman,” came into English directly from French in the early seventeenth century. After balls and similar grand social occasions became relatively rare, the original meaning—the reigning beauty
at a dance—was widened to include the outstanding individual (male or
female) at virtually any gathering. Today the term is often used ironically,
for someone who would like to be so regarded.
behind the times
Old-fashioned, outdated. From the sixteenth to eigh- teenth centuries this meaning was conveyed by behindhand. In the nine- teenth century, however, it turned into the present locution, as in Dickens’s Dombey and Son (1846): “I’m old-fashioned and behind the time.”
