not in Kansas anymore
English
WOTD – 10 August 2006
Etymology
From the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, in which Dorothy states, “Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.”
Pronunciation
Audio (AU) (file)
Adjective
not in Kansas anymore
- (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, archived from the original on 2013-03-05:
- 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.
Synonyms
- out of one's depth
See also
- you can't go home again