[New post] ‘not to be able to [verb] for toffee’: meaning and early occurrences

Pascal Tréguer posted: "Of British-English origin, the phrase not to be able to [verb] for toffee means to be incompetent at performing the action denoted by the verb. This phrase occurs for example in the following passage from The Thorn Birds (New York: Harper and Row, Publis" 'not to be able to [verb] for toffee': meaning and early occurrences Pascal Tréguer Apr 29 to be incompetent at performing the action denoted by the verb—UK, 1886—originally occurred in sporting contexts as 'not to be able to play for toffee' or 'not to be able to shoot for toffee' Read more of this post Like Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from word histories. Change your email settings at manage subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://wordhistories.net Powered by WordPress.com