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| | free expressions meanings, words, phrases origins and derivations |
 | | In the traditional English game of nine-pins (the pins were like skittles, of the sort that led to the development of tenpin bowling), when the pins were knocked over leaving a triangular formation of three standing pins, the set was described as having been knocked into a cocked hat. |
 | | The use of the word English to mean spin may also have referred to the fact that the leather tip of a billiard cue which enables better control of the ball was supposedly an English invention. |
 | | During the 1900's the word was shortened and commonly the hyphen erroneously added, resulting from common confusion and misinterpretation of the 'ex' prefix, which was taken to mean 'was', as in ex-wife, ex-president, etc., instead of 'ex' meaning 'out', as in expatriate, expel, exhaust, etc. Strictly speaking therefore, the correct form is expat, not ex-pat. |
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