not in Kansas anymore
English
WOTD – 10 August 2006
Alternative forms
Etymology
From the film The Wizard of Oz (1939), in which Dorothy states, “Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.”
Pronunciation
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Adjective
- (idiomatic, colloquial, US) No longer in quiet and comfortable surroundings.
- As soon as I walked into that party I thought, "I'm not in Kansas anymore."
- 1986 April, Gerald Hannon, “Leaving Kansas”, in The Body Politic, number 125, Pink Triangle Press, page 8:
- John Crosbie? A Tory government? You could be forgiven if your first reaction was the feeling that you weren't in Kansas anymore.
- 1990 October 1, “Critics' Voices”, in Time[1], archived from the original on 5 March 2013:
- The police action is rough and raw, like Hill Street Blues. But when a courtroom jury, asked for its verdict, breaks into song, we know we're not in Kansas anymore.
- 1991 July, Ray Duncan, “Power Programming”, in PC Magazine, page 444:
- C++ meets all three of these classic criteria of object-orientedness, but once you really start to take advantage of them in your programs, you'll find you're definitely not in Kansas anymore.