Chuffed to bits
"Extremely pleased or delighted."
This one hides a genuinely contradictory history. In some regional English dialects, "chuffed" meant pleased or satisfied, while in others, recorded just as early, it meant precisely the opposite: annoyed or offended. Both senses coexisted in British dialect for generations before the positive meaning won out and became standard in the mid-20th century. Exactly why the word could mean two opposite things, and why the pleased sense eventually took over, has never been satisfactorily explained.
Sources: Documented dual dialectal senses cited in the Oxford English Dictionary's entry for 'chuffed, adj.'; standard positive usage established by the mid-20th century.
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