Slang in Japanese is very much like fashion trends. You will hear a phrase everywhere for a few months and then never hear it again after it goes out of style.
Here’s a good example of that from a high school dance club. This was made a few years ago, but it is made in the style of the 1980s, so they intentionally throw out some slang phrases that nobody under the age of 50 will recognize. One of these is “おったまげ～” (ottamage~), which was evidently an expression indicating surprise in the late '80s, but is unknown to those born after that.
The video is also very well-made and totally worth watching even without the interesting linguistics.
I think the phrase may pre-date the relatively modern phenomena of people self-identifying as witches.
It used to be that “being a witch” was something religious zealots accused you of if they didn’t like your theology or just thought you were a potential troublemaker, not a label people proudly embraced for themselves.
My grandfather often used these beauties:
“Colder than a Dakota well-digger’s ass!”
“It’s as obvious as a turd in a bowl of milk.”
“Somebody shit in the frying pan.”
… and lots more that I’m unfortunately forgetting
It is a US-English phrase and, although not unknown over here, perhaps not that surprising that 71% did not know it. The whole exercise is a self-promo for a PR agency.
First thought? Most of those phrases could hardly be considered British. Maybe they first originated there, but they seem common throughout the English speaking world now. Still - I think there are some logical explanations:
Fly in the ointment? Due to improvements in health care young people are no longer relying on snake-oil ointments. Also, better packaging means the flies can’t get in.
Flash in the pan? The rise of food delivery services combined with a move toward sous-vide and pressure cooking means the younger set aren’t cooking with frying pans anymore.
Knickers in a twist? Young folks are apparently more likely to forgo undergarments nowadays
Dead as a doornail? - Open concept architecture = fewer doors (and doornails)
Flogging a dead horse? The decline of horse racing is well documented, hence fewer dead horses to flog
Steal my thunder? With climate change, there is enough thunder to go around now.
Raining cats and dogs? Changes in pet trends, it now rains ferrets and lizards.
Put a sock in it? The English are finally dispensing with the stereotype of wearing socks with sandals.
Selling like hot cakes? Hot cakes have fallen out of vogue and the retro-trend of drop scones has taken over.
Pardon my French? Popularity of French Immersion means that many more youngsters now fluently bilingual.
Many of those expressions would be fodder for a certain kind of youtube channel.
Something about a dead nail being a nail that can’t be recycled, and a doornail being a kind of nail that was usually bent over during the process of nailing it in.
Then, there is the connection with Orwell’s politics in the English language.
Dying metaphors . A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image, while on the other hand a metaphor which is technically ‘dead’ (e. g. iron resolution ) has in effect reverted to being an ordinary word and can generally be used without loss of vividness. But in between these two classes there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves. Examples are: Ring the changes on , take up the cudgels for , toe the line , ride roughshod over , stand shoulder to shoulder with , play into the hands of , no axe to grind , grist to the mill , fishing in troubled waters , on the order of the day , Achilles’ heel , swan song , hotbed . Many of these are used without knowledge of their meaning (what is a ‘rift’, for instance?), and incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying. Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning without those who use them even being aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line . Another example is the hammer and the anvil , now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about: a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original phrase.
