Who invented the pharse 'Spick and span?'
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aussiegrl4evs
ANSWERS: 2
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A Dutch expression 'spiksplinternieuw' became 'spick and span new' in the 1570's and it referred to a ship newly built with all new nails and timber. By the middle of the following century, it had been shortened to our modern spick and span. It had also shifted sense to our current one, for something so neat and clean that it looks new and unused. Samuel Pepys is the first recorded user, in his diary for 15 November 1665: “My Lady Batten walking through the dirty lane with new spicke and span white shoes.” http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-spi5.htm
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"Spick and span", was a British idiom first recorded in 1579, and used shortly afterwards in Samuel Pepys's diary. A spick was a spike or nail, a span was a very fresh wood chip, and thus the phrase meant clean and neat and all in place, as in being nailed down. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spic_and_Span
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