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Article: Good Questions: Partridge in a fair plea
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- July 11, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1994 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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SINCE when has it been possible to bore the pants off someone?
(Tim Paine, Bristol)
Since the late 1940s, according to Eric Partridge's A Dictionary
of Slang and Unconventional English, although you could bore
someone by wearying them as far back as 1768. The earliest citation
of pant-boring in the OED comes from P G Wodehouse's Jeeves and the
Feudal Spirit (1954): "They were creeps of the first water and
would bore the pants off me." For a higher class of boring, we
refer to Malcolm Muggeridge's description of Sir Anthony Eden: "He
was not only a bore; he bored for England."
Why are nave people wet behind the ears? (Mollie Caird, Oxford)
According to Everyman's Modern Phrase and Fable, it ...