The earliest written citation of the noun phrase in Google Books was by British writer John Shipp (1784-1834). The name of the work was "Paddy and the French Cavalry", retelling an incident allegedly occuring at the [[Battle of Waterloo]] in a very short account in ''The Military Bijou or the Contents of a Soldier's Knapsack Being the Gleanings of Thirty-Three Years Active Service'' from 1831 (London: Whittaker, Treacher and Co.), p. 186. | The earliest written citation of the noun phrase in Google Books was by British writer John Shipp (1784-1834). The name of the work was "Paddy and the French Cavalry", retelling an incident allegedly occuring at the [[Battle of Waterloo]] in a very short account in ''The Military Bijou or the Contents of a Soldier's Knapsack Being the Gleanings of Thirty-Three Years Active Service'' from 1831 (London: Whittaker, Treacher and Co.), p. 186. |