Browse phrases beginning with: [A][B][C][D][E][F][G][H][I][J][K][L][M][N][O][P][Q][R][S][T][U,V][W][X,Y,Z] You look as if you've been dragged through a hedge backwardsMeaning Said to someone who is unkempt and whose hair needs brushing. Origin I'm fairly confident that this expression is of English colloquial origin. Despite searches however I haven't been able to find an English citation that pre-dates this piece in The Manitoba Morning Free Press, February 1910:
More recently, the English cook and food writer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's (and with a name like that he would surely have to be English) advocation of eating food from hedgerows and his unkempt hair has lead to a resurgence of use of the phrase in reviews of his work. |