Booze:

It derives from the Middle Dutch verb busen; meaning to driving heavily, and first appeared in English as a verb spelled bouses. 

 

From Spenser’s 1590 The Fairy Queen

 

“And in his hand did bear, a boozing can,

Of which he supt so oft, that on his eat

His drunken corse he scarse upholden can.”

 

Brass Tacks:

The phrase “get down to brass tacks” is of uncertain etymology. There are several explanations. We do know the phrase dates at least to the 1890s and that it is American in origin.

 

The earliest citation is from an 1895 letter by Frederick Remington: How little I know… when you get down to brass-tacks.

 

One guess is that is was used to mark out a yard on the counter with brass tacks so that customers buying cloth could “get down to brass tacks,” and ensure they were not being cheated.

 

The second is get to basics. 

 

A third explanation in Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang, which hold that “brass tacks” is rhyming slang for “facts.”

 

Buck

 

Buck is a slang term for dollar. It is a clipped form of buckskin. On the American frontier, buckskins were often used as units of commerce. The meaning of a unit of value dates back to at least 1748.

 

Bug

 

Popular etymology has it that Grace Hopper, a navel officer and computer pioneer, coined the term bug for a computer defect when she discovered an insect in a malfunctioning computer. This is not true.

 

The term bug for “defect” goes back to the nineteenth century.

 

Bullpen

 

The origin of the term bullpen, the name for an area in which relief pitchers warm up, is unknown.

 

One theory is that the turn of the century, relievers would warm up, near the outfield fence, where signs for Bull Durham Tobacco. 

 

Another theory is that it was a term used for late-arriving fans in the 1870’s. After the game started, tickets would be sold at a discount. These late arriving fans with cheap tickets would be herded into a roped-off, standing-room-only area in foul territory. Because the fans were herded like cattle, the area was known as the bullpen. The name for this foul territory stuck, and later, when relief pitchers became part of the game, they used this area of foul territory to warm up.

 

O Henry used this term to describe a waiting area.