Dogs bark but the caravan moves on
The first citation in English for it offered by the OED comes from a book of 1860 by I. Dass Domestic Manners & Customs of the Hindoos of North India and comes complete with an explanation of its meaning.
Nuts, nostalgia and ‘as sweet as a nut’.
Nuts feature in two types of metaphor The first is a euphemism for, ahem, testicles. Clearly perceived similarity of shape is the root or the ‘grounds’ of the metaphor. The popular Australian brand of edible nuts ‘Nobby’s Nuts’ exploits potential double-entendres to the full, particularly in an ad it used a while back: ‘Nibble Nobby’s Nuts.’
Blowsy flowers, blowsy women and Beryl Cook. But what does blowsy mean?
As reading the examples will quickly show, most refer to women, but four examples refer to flowers or flower heads, and six more refer to plants or gardens, three of which are shown: blowsy British charm, blowsy clump of feather reed grass, blowsy double anemones.
Jeremy Butterfield Editorial 