1886. Pall Mall Gazette, 23 June, p. 13. Every Oxford man has known
and loved the beauties of the walk called Mesopotamia.
The true Mesopotamia ring, phr. (common).—High-sounding and pleasing,
but wholly past comprehension. [In allusion to the story of the old
woman who told her pastor that she found great support in that blessed
word Mesopotamia].
Mess, subs. (colloquial).—1. A difficulty; a fiasco; a muddle. To make
a mess of it = to fail utterly or permanently.
1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. etc., ii. 193. They make it a rule when
they receive neither beer nor money from a house to make as great a
mess as possible the next time they come.
1880. Life in a Debtor’s Prison, 77. Contemptuous pity due to a
poor devil who has made a mess of it.
c. 1884. J. W. Palmer, After His Kind, p. 91. What a mess they made
of it!