‘stiff upper lip’ (1815)

1800S, EXPRESSION, MASSACHUSETTS, POKER, UNCATEGORIZED

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It is actually quite funny to think that having a stiff upper lip (1815) is a character trait that is often held up as one being particularly British in nature, is actually a phrase coined, of course, in America. The expression is actually a spin-off of the earlier expression “to be stuck up and stiff as a poker”.

The expression stiff upper lip is first recorded in Massachusetts, and no that is not a village in England.

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