English

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If you've ever found yourself in a foreign country trying to explain the British expression 'a few sandwiches short of a picnic', this list is for you, says Hazel Davis

1. Sweet Fanny Adams
Sadly, the meaning of this is very easy to pinpoint and refers to eight-year-old Fanny Adams, who was killed and dismembered in Alton in 1867. The Royal Navy reportedly came to refer to their paltry meat rations as 'Fanny Adams'. It later came to stand for nothing at all, the initials conveniently standing for another more expression, resulting in Sweet FA.

2. Kicking the bucket
First mentioned in print in 1775, it has been suggested that the bucket refers to the Old French buquet for a balance, or a trebuchet, the medieval siege weapon for hurling missiles at the enemy.

3. A bit of how’s your father
This expression is first credited to music-hall comedian Harry Tate, who, when asked an awkward question, would reply with 'How's your father? This was then used by First World War servicemen as a stand-in for all manner of implications, including the racy one it is now most often associated with.

4. Bob’s your uncle
Meaning 'Simple as that', this expression is thought to date from the Victorian prime minister, Lord Salisbury, when he appointed his nephew Arthur Balfour as chief secretary for Ireland, a post most people considered him unfit for. However, from the 1900s, 'Bob' was a generic name for an unknown man.

5. To be a crosspatch
This expression originally refers to a fool or clown and supposedly dates from the 17th century. Apparently, the original 'patch' was a clown called Sexten, employed by Cardinal Wolsey.

6. The apple of my eye
This phrase, which appears in the King James Bible and also in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, refers to a time when the pupil of the eye was thought to be a solid object.

7. To be a flash in the pan
This expression is thought to have come from when flintlock muskets used to have small pans to hold gunpowder. if the gunpowder flared up without a bullet being fired, it was a 'flash in the pan'.

8. To get someone’s goat
In the 19th century nervous horses would supposedly be calmed down by placing a goat in the stall with them. Rival horse owners would steal (or 'get') the goat to upset the horse and win the race.

9. A red herring
This is thought to come from the practice of using the scent of red herring in training hounds because the smell is good for disguising other odours.

10. To have a knees-up
You don't get more British than a knees-up and this expression first appeared in the music-hall song Knees Up, Mother Brown.

11. Dressed to the nines
This was first recorded by the poet Robert Burns but others have suggested it was originally 'dressed to the eyes'. which in medieval English would have been 'to then eyne'.

12. To beat around the bush
In medieval times game birds were scared out of their hiding places under bushes and then killed. Hitting the bush directly could prove dangerous, hence the analogy.

13. To wet your whistle
This first appears in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The word 'whistle' refers to a mouth.

14. Not enough room to swing a cat
The true origin of this saying is unclear, with many supposing it is to do with swinging a cat o' nine tails in a small ship's cabin, though this has been disputed. 

15. Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey 
This phrase was first recorded in America in the mid-1880s. Some believe it originated from the Napoleonic wars and derived from the brass plate (called a monkey) that cannonballs were stacked on. When it was cold, the brass would contract and the balls would fall off. Others think this is unlikely and merely refers to the extremities on actual brass monkeys.

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