ChatterBank0 min ago
turn-up
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What is the origin of the phrase "That's a turn-up for the book"?
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It now means exactly what you say, something surprising. The origin is in horse racing, where the book was the record of bets laid on a race kept by a bookmaker. So when a horse performed in a way that nobody expected, so that most bets lost, it was something that benefited the book and so the bookmaker.
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