Manjusha Nair

Manjusha Nair is currently and Assistant Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. She completed her PhD in 2011 from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She also has a Master of Philosophy in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University in India. Her research interests are in Political Sociology, Development, Comparative and Historical Sociology, Labor Movements, State and Society in China and India. She does research on state and social conflict, globalization and development, and the politics of the non-elite. Manjusha Nair is currently preparing a book manuscript titled “Labor in Transition: Informal Workers, State and the Business Elite in Central India, 1977-2012” that addresses the transformations in citizenship through a comparative study of two labor movements in central India. Through careful ethnographic analysis, sheThe meaning and origin of the expression: Tell it to the marines

Tell it to the marines

What's the meaning of the phrase 'Tell it to the marines'?

A scornful response to a tall and unbelieved story.

What's the origin of the phrase 'Tell it to the marines'?

The US Marine Corps are probably the best-known marines these days and this American-sounding phrase is often thought to refer to them. This isn't an American phrase though and, although it has been known there since the 1830s, it originated in the UK and the marines in question were the Royal Marines.

The first marines in an English-speaking country were The Duke of York and Albany's Maritime Regiment of Foot, formed in 1664, in the reign of Charles II. Charles I of Spain had established a