"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 22/01/18 ( superlatives: cool, playing a blinder, lollapolooza, cut the mustard, peachy, a corker, rip snorter)

I have a tweet in from John Ashworth, who asked for the origin of "playing a blinder". And it's actually quite simple when you think about it. Something that's good, or perhaps, you know, a difficult piece of play in sporting match where you really have overcome the odds. To play something that is dazzlingly good, and the dazzling is what it's all about, because that's why it is blinding. So, it's as simple as that. But it got me thinking about other superlatives, because English is awash, thankfully, with lots of superlatives. We tend to stick to the tried and tested, but there are many that we can use. We like, in slang, to flip bad for good, so "bad" itself means "good" - "sick", "wicked", etc. But we've lost some of the wonderful terms that we used to have. So, "lollapolooza", which you'll still find in dictionary, is a term from the US from the early 1900s for something outstanding, that's "lollapoloosa", it's simply a flanciful formation, but I like it. Or it may be so hot, it's "mustard", and "mustard" was another slang term in the US for something outstanding, and that's where we get "cut the mustard" from. Mustard being it's so hot, it's really, really good, and cutting in that sense is the same is, "she cuts a fine figure". So although it seems strange, "cutting the mustard", it's actually quite simple when you analyse it. The outstanding thing may be "peachy", that's simply play on words on something sweet or juicy. Or in the olden days, it could also be a carbuncle, something that was great was a carbuncle. And that's very strange to us today, because we associate carbuncles with something entirely negative. But it originally described a large precious stone of blazing, fierly red colour, and it was a mythical gem, it was believed to give out the light in the dark. And the lesions of the skin that we associate with carbuncles today are so-called simply because they are flamming red, they are very inflamed. More obviously wonderful superlatives are "a corker" - something so fizzy, it pops - and a "rip snorter" - originally a dashing, riotous fellow. And you had a "screamer" too - a "screamer" was actually also once a term for an exclamation mark, believe it or not. But perhaps the most enduring term of approval of all, which has lasted for such a long time and can be used by any generation, is "cool". Ans that may well go all the way back to the late 1800s and have started off in British public schools, but it really was propelled into the mainstream in the jazz era of the '30s and '40s by Charlie Parker and his ilk. So, the lexicon of superlavives goes on and on and on, and let's keep selebrating them, because there are so many out of there we could use.