The origins of words and expressions aren’t always what we expect. Stories have it that the game “Chinese Checkers” originated in Germany in the late 1800s under the name “Stern-Halma”, with “Stern” or “star” reflecting the board’s shape. It was later dubbed “Chinese Checkers” in the United States in the late 1920s during a period of strong interest in Oriental culture.
Here are several additional common expressions and idioms that include names of countries or cities:
China
Chinese Whispers (UK) – A metaphor for inaccurately transmitted rumours or gossip
Origin: From the spoken game in which a person whispers a message to the person sitting next to them, who then passes it on to the next person, and so forth, with the message passed progressively from one person to another a number of times, resulting in accumulated inaccuracies as the game progresses. The game is played all over the world, where it is known by different names. In the US, the game is called “Telephone”, “Gossip” or “Rumour Clinic”.
Example: “All this talk about the President resigning is just Chinese whispers. There’s no truth to this rumour at all.”
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Slow boat to China – Used to describe something that is very slow and takes a long time
Origin: From the American song: “(I’d Like to Get You on a) Slow Boat to China”, by Frank Loesser (1948)
Example: “Travelling to the south in this old car is like taking the slow boat to China.”
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Not for all the tea in China – Not at any price
Origin: This expression seems to date back to the late 19th/early 20th century, and is inspired from the fact that China was (and still is) well known for producing tea in huge quantities. The origin of the clause is not clear, but it appears in J.J. Mann’s travelogue, Round the world in a motor car (1914), as follows:
“AUSTRALIA is not a hospitable country for anybody that has not got a white skin … One is not even allowed to bring in a black servant, and when I applied to the authorities for permission to bring Samand with me, the reply was: ‘Not for all the tea in China’.”
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China syndrome – A hypothetical sequence of events following the meltdown of a nuclear reactor, in which the core melts through its containment structure and deep into the earth (Oxford English Dictionary)
Origin: The term originated in the 1970s, from China (as being on the opposite side of the earth from a reactor in the US). It describes a scenario in which a nuclear reactor meltdown in North America would theoretically melt a hole straight through the earth to China (which is impossible). In more realistic usage, it describes such a meltdown reaching groundwater and forcing subsequent radioactive gases into the atmosphere. The latter scenario was used as the basis of a 1979 film of the same name starring Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas.
Example: “While many advocate nuclear power as clean and safe, the risk of catastrophes such as China syndrome makes me very nervous about its use.”
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Words Originating from the Names of Places
Serendipity (n.) – The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way (Oxford English Dictionary)
Origin: First coined by the Gothic novelist Horace Walpole in 1754, with reference to the 16th-century fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip*, in which the heroes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of”.
*Serendip: The Persian and Urdu name of Sri Lanka, adopted from Sanskrit and meaning golden island
Example: “Meeting her like that, and there of all places, was true serendipity!”
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Philistine (n.) – A person who is hostile or indifferent to culture and the arts (Oxford English Dictionary)
Origin: The Philistines, inhabitants of the ancient city of Philistia (now the Gaza Strip), were a people negatively described in the Bible. The term came to be applied figuratively to anyone considered an enemy.
However, the modern meaning of the word appeared in the early 19th century “with reference to a confrontation between university students and townspeople in Jena, Germany, in the late 17th century”, where a student was killed. A sermon on the conflict quoted from the text “Philister über dir Simson!” (“The Philistines be upon thee, Samson!”, Judges 16:20), “which led to an association between the townspeople and those hostile to culture”. (Oxford English Dictionary)
Example: “I’m too much of a philistine to enjoy a visit to the National Art Gallery.”
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