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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Clapham omnibus
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The man on the Clapham omnibus has been a phrase for the ordinary man since the 1890s (when the word 'omnibus' was already archaic, replaced by the abbreviation 'bus' for the horse-drawn vehicle of those days). The choice of the omnibus from Clapham into London, rather than from any other terminus, seems accidental. It may perhaps derive from an article of 1857 in the Journal of the Society of Arts about London's traffic, where the author says congestion has become so normal that the passenger on the roof of a Clapham omnibus can be stuck on London Bridge for half an hour without complaining.
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