hail fellow well met

On easy, congenial terms; also, superficial friendliness. This expression, which has a quintessentially Victorian ring, actually dates from the sixteenth century. Presumably it began as a greeting, but by 1550 it was being used figuratively and so appeared in Thomas Becon’s New Catechisme (“They would be ‘hail fellow well met’ with him”).

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get a handle on something, to

To succeed in dealing with a difficult problem. Dating from the mid-twentieth century, this slangy Americanism alludes to coping with a cumbersome object by attaching a handle to it.

However, “handle” has been used both figuratively and literally in several
ways for many years. “Most things have two Handles; and a wise Man takes
hold of the best,” wrote Thomas Fuller in Gnomologia (1732). Further, “handle” has been a colloquialism for a title, and by extension a name, since
about 1800. The current saying, on its way to becoming a cliché, thus can
allude either to getting a secure hold on a slippery problem, or to identifying it correctly by naming it. A synonym for the former sense is get a grip on
something, meaning to take a firm hold on it. See also GET A GRIP.

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get a grip

Get hold of yourself, calm down. This imperative had several ear- lier meanings; one, dating from the 1940s in the military, was to put effort into what one was doing. Another, in college slang a few decades later, was to pay attention. The current meaning, however, is the one that has survived. In a Boston Globe editorial (Oct. 31, 2004) describing former New York City mayor Ed Koch’s complaint that the Democratic National Convention in Boston “had no excitement,” the writer said, “Get a grip, Ed. It was only our first one. Beginner’s luck.” The usage is the converse of to lose one’s grip, to lose compo- sure, first recorded in 1875 and cited by the OED. See also GET A HANDLE ON
SOMETHING.

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gentleman and a scholar, a

Well behaved and well educated. This term dates from the days when only well-born boys and men (or those who entered a religious order) received any education at all. Its earliest appear- ance in print was in George Peele’s Merrie Conceited Jests of 1607 (“He goes directly to the Mayor, tels him he was a Scholler and a Gentleman”). It probably was close to being a cliché by the time Robert Burns used it jok- ingly in his The Twa Dogs (1786): “His locked, letter’d braw brass collar shew’d him the gentleman an’ scholar.”

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garden path, to lead up/down the

To deceive, to trick. This expres- sion, often put simply as “up the garden,” originated early in the twentieth century and tends to suggest a romantic or seductive enticement. Often found in popular novels of the 1930s and 1940s, it is less frequently heard today. See also PRIMROSE PATH.

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fair-weather friend

A friend who is faithful in good times but fails you in time of trouble. It is the opposite of a FRIEND IN NEED IS A FRIEND INDEED.
The transfer of “fair weather” to “good times” presumably occurred long
before, but the adjectival application to a friend of dubious loyalty did not
take place until the early eighteenth century.

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fair to middling

So-so, moderately good, a reply to “How are you?” Since “fair” and “middling” here mean the same thing—that is, pretty good or mediocre—the expression is basically jocular. It originated in the mid- nineteenth century, probably in America. An early citation in the OED is from Artemus Ward’s His Travels (“The men are fair to middling,” 1865). See also CAN’T COMPLAIN.

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fair shake, a

An equitable opportunity or treatment. An Americanism dating from the early nineteenth century, the term probably alludes to the shaking of dice, but was soon transferred. An 1830 issue of the Central Watchtower and Farmer’s Journal, a Kentucky publication, had it, “Any way that will be a fair shake.”

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fair sex, the

Females in general. This cliché, which is rapidly dying out, is a direct translation of the French le beau sexe, a phrase popularized by the English journalists Joseph Addison and Richard Steele (“That sex which is therefore called fair,” The Spectator, 1712). It was already a cliché by the time Arthur Conan Doyle (The Second Stain, 1905) put it in Sherlock
Holmes’s mouth: “Now Watson, the fair sex is your department.”

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eat crow/humble pie/dirt, to

To acknowledge an embarrassing error and humiliatingly abase oneself. All these expressions date from the early nine- teenth century, eating crow from America and eating humble pie and dirt from Britain. The origin of the first is not known, although it is generally acknowl- edged that the meat of a crow tastes terrible. A story cited by Charles Funk and published in the Atlanta Constitution in 1888 claims that toward the end of the War of 1812, during a temporary truce, an American went hunting and by accident crossed behind the British lines, where he shot a crow. He was caught
by an unarmed British officer who, by complimenting him on his fine shooting, persuaded him to hand over his gun. The officer then pointed the gun and said that as punishment for trespassing the American must take a bite out of the crow. The American obeyed, but when the officer returned his gun, he took his revenge and made the Briton eat the rest of the bird.
The source of humble pie is less far-fetched; it is a corruption of (or pun on) umble-pie, “umbles” being dialect for the heart, liver, and entrails of the deer, which were fed to the hunt’s beaters and other servants while the lord and his guests ate the choice venison. This explanation appeared in 1830 in Vocabulary of East Anglia by Robert Forby.
The analogy to eating dirt is self-evident. It appeared in Frederick W.
Farrar’s Julian Home (1859): “He made up for the dirt they had been eating
by the splendour of his entertainment.”

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easy street, on

Very well off, financially secure. This phrase uses easy in the sense of “in comfortable circumstances,” a usage dating from about 1700. The phrase itself came into use about two hundred years later.

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easy come, easy go

What is readily achieved or gained is also readily lost. This principle was noted hundreds of years ago by the Chinese sage Chuang-tsze (“Quickly come and quickly go,” c. 400 B.C.) and appears sev- eral times in Chaucer’s writings—for example, “As lightly as it comth, so wol we spende” (The Pardoner’s Tale). “Light come, light go” is also in John Heywood’s 1546 proverb collection. Easy was substituted for lightly and quickly in the nineteenth century.

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easy as rolling off a log

Not difficult; requiring little or no effort. One writer claims that this term, which is American, dates from colonial times, but the earliest written records date from the 1830s. Mark Twain used it in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889): “I could do it as easy as rolling off a log.” The analogy, no doubt, is to remain standing on a log floating downstream, which is no easy feat. Indeed, it is sometimes put as easy as falling off a log. See also DUCK SOUP; EASY AS PIE.

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dead heat, in a

Tied for first place. The term comes from horse-racing, in which “heat” used to mean simply a race (today its meaning is a bit more specific). It was in use by the late eighteenth century (“The whole race was run head and head, terminating in a dead heat,” Sporting Magazine, 1796). It later was applied to any contest in which there was a tie.

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dead from the neck up

Extremely stupid. This slangy metaphor was first recorded in 1911. John Dos Passos used it in Forty-second Parallel (1930): “Most of the inhabitants are dead from the neck up.”

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dead duck, a

A has-been or a loser. The term dates from the second half of the nineteenth century and may have been derived from LAME DUCK. At first it denoted a person whose political influence had declined. Later it simply came to mean someone who has no hope of winning, or who has already lost.

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dead as a doornail

Dead, unresponsive, defunct. This simile dates from the fourteenth century and the source of it has been lost. A doornail was either a heavy-headed nail for studding an outer door or the knob on which a door knocker strikes. One plausible explanation for the analogy to death is that it alluded to costly metal nails (rather than cheap wooden pegs), which were clinched and hence “dead” (could not be re-used). The expression was used in a fourteenth-century poem of unknown authorship, William of Palerne, and was still current when Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol (1843). There have been numerous similar proverbial comparisons— dead as a mackerel, dead as mutton, dead as a herring, dead as a stone—but
this one, with its alliterative lilt, has survived longest.

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can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear

One cannot turn something inherently inferior into something of value. This proverbial metaphor dates from about 1500, and with some slight variation (“silk” is sometimes “vel- vet”) makes its way from proverb collections (by Howell, Ray, Dykes, et al.) into literature (Samuel Richardson, Laurence Sterne, Jonathan Swift, Charles Lamb, Robert Browning, George Bernard Shaw, and Clifford Odets, among others).

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can’t hit the broad side of a barn

Describing a person with very poor aim. The term is thought to have originated in the mid-nineteenth century in the military. It was often repeated in the early twentieth century, when it was applied to untalented baseball pitchers who could not throw the ball over the plate with any consistency. The “broad side” in this expression also suggests the old naval meaning of broadside, that is, a simultaneous discharge of all the guns on one side of a warship. However, there are numerous variants (the inside of a barn, the right side of a barn with a shotgun, and so on) that suggest the term may also have been rural in origin.

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can’t fight City Hall, one/you/they

An ordinary person cannot overcome bureaucracy. The term is American in origin, for it is mainly in the United States that the seat of a city government is called City Hall (and has been since the late seventeenth century). The idea of combating the city bureaucracy is believed to date from the nineteenth century, when Tammany Hall was a powerful political machine that controlled the New York Demo-
cratic Party and, in effect, the city government.

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can’t complain

Pretty good, in response to “How are things going?” This very modern-sounding phrase, which means one has nothing genuine to complain about (or at least will not admit it), comes from mid-nineteenth- century Britain. Eric Partridge cites an early example, R. S. Surtees’s Haw- buck Grange (1847), in which one character observes that time is passing lightly over another, who replies, “Middling—can’t complain.” Today it is a frequent response to inquiries about a business. See also FAIR TO MIDDLING.

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ballpark figure, a

A roughly accurate estimate, an educated guess. Coming from baseball, this expression rests in turn on in the ballpark, meaning within certain limits. Although both are generally applied to numerical estimates, neither appears to have anything to do with baseball scores.

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bald as a coot/billiard ball

Very bald indeed. The coot is a black water bird whose white bill extends up to the forehead, making it appear to be bald. Indeed, this bird was already being called a balled cote in the thirteenth century. The later simile, to a billiard ball, has been less recorded, but since billiards was already popular in Shakespeare’s day it cannot be of very recent origin.

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baker’s dozen

Thirteen. The source of this term is a law passed by the English Parliament in 1266, which specified exactly how much a loaf of bread should weigh and imposed a heavy penalty for short weight. To protect themselves, bakers would give their customers thirteen loaves instead of twelve, and in the sixteenth century this came to be called “a baker’s dozen.”

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bag of tricks

One’s entire resources. It refers to the bag of the itinerant magician, which contained all the paraphernalia needed to perform his tricks. The expression dates back at least as far as one of La Fontaine’s fables (1694), in which a fox carries a sac des ruses. It became especially common in Victorian literature.

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all to the good

Largely an advantage. The term dates from the days when good was an accounting term that meant profit or worth, so that “all to the good” meant net profit. By the late nineteenth century the meaning had become much more general and the phrase a cliché.

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all-time high (low)

A record achievement (or failure), never before sur- passed. An Americanism from the early twentieth century, the term has been applied to matters economic (production), recreational (golf score), and numerous other areas.

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all thumbs, to be

To be clumsy. The locution was already considered proverbial in John Heywood’s collection in 1546 (“When he should get ought, eche fynger is a thumbe”) and has been repeated countless times since.

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all things to all men, to be

To adapt so as to satisfy everyone. The term appears in the New Testament of the Bible, in the first book of Corinthians
(9:22): “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” Today it is more often used negatively—that is, one cannot be all things to all men, although political candidates in particular continue to try. Eric Partridge believed it was a cliché by the nineteenth century.

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all things considered

When everything has been taken into account. The modern sense implies a careful weighing of all circumstances involved, making this phrase a precautionary one (compare it to WHEN ALL’S SAID AND DONE). G. K. Chesterton used it as the title of a collection of his essays (1908), and it also is the name of a thoughtful but long-winded talk show on U.S. public radio. In both cases it is the idea of thoughtfulness that is stressed. In ordinary speech the phrase has been in common use for about a century.

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game is not worth the candle, the

The undertaking does not warrant the time, effort, or expense involved. This expression originally was a translation of the French essayist Montaigne’s statement, “Le jeu ne vault pas la chandelle” (1580), and found its way into John Ray’s proverb collection of 1678. In the days of candlelight illumination, it literally meant that the card game being played was not worth the cost of the candles used to light the proceedings. It soon was transferred to any undertaking and so persisted through the centuries.

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fair-haired boy

The current favorite, the individual singled out for spe- cial treatment. This male counterpart of “gentlemen prefer blondes” comes from the late nineteenth century. “The old crowd of Fair-haired Correspondent Boys who hung to the ear of President Roosevelt” appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1909.

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fair game

A legitimate object of attack, pursuit, or mockery. The anal- ogy, of course, is to hunting, and the term has been used figuratively since the early nineteenth century. “They were indeed fair game for the laughers,” wrote Thomas Macaulay in his essay on Milton (1825).

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fair and square

Just and unequivocal. This expression, recorded since the early seventeenth century, owes its appeal to its rhyme and has survived despite its tautology (“square” here means the same as “fair,” surviving in such phrases as “a square deal”). “You are fair and square in all your deal- ings,” wrote William Wycherley (The Gentleman Dancing Master, 1673).

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fact of the matter, the

The truth. This rather empty phrase, for which plain and simple “fact” would do just as well, is somewhat newer than its turnaround companion, as a matter of fact, which means “in truth” and, as Eric Partridge pointed out years ago, often precedes a lie. Both have been clichés since the nineteenth century. Two closely related locutions are the truth of the matter and if truth be known, which generally precede an emphatic statement of how the speaker sees a situation. On the other hand, matter-of- fact used as an adjective has a quite different meaning, that is, straightfor- ward and commonplace, and a matter of fact without as has meant, since the sixteenth century, something of an actually factual nature.

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face the music, to

To meet the consequences of one’s bad behavior, mistakes, and the like; to confront difficulties bravely. This term, American in origin, is believed to come from the theater and refers to the orchestra in the pit, which an actor must face along with a perhaps hostile audience. Another writer suggests it comes from the armed services, where a soldier’s dismissal in disgrace might be accompanied by the band’s playing the
“Rogue’s March.” An 1871 book of American sayings quotes James Fenimore Cooper discussing, about 1851, Rabelais’s “unpleasant quarter [of an hour],” when the French writer found he could not pay his bill and turned on the innkeeper with an accusation of treason, which so frightened him that he let Rabelais leave without paying. Cooper said that “our more picturesque peo- ple” called this facing the music. A less picturesque synonym is to face up to something.

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easy as pie

Not difficult; requiring little or no effort or expertise. The analogy no doubt is to eating pie rather than making it, which requires both effort and expertise. An American term dating from the early twentieth century, it became a cliché relatively recently. See also DUCK SOUP; EASY AS ROLLING OFF A LOG.

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easier said than done

Describing something that is more readily talked about than accomplished. This expression dates back as far as the fifteenth century, when it appeared in several sources, including the Vulgate (Latin) Bible. It was sometimes put as sooner or better said than done; the latter appears in John Heywood’s 1546 collection of English proverbs.

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ear to the ground, to have/keep an

To be well informed. The allusion here, one writer conjectures, is to the days of cowboys and Indians, when one literally put one’s ear to the ground in order to hear the sound of horses miles away. An Americanism dating from the late nineteenth century, the term was a cliché by the time Stanley Walker poked fun at it (and two others) in The Uncanny Knacks of Mr. Doherty (1941): “He had his ear to the ground and his eye on the ball while they were sitting on the fence.”

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earth move, to feel the

To have an extremely good sexual experience. This hyperbole first appeared in Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), “But did thee feel the earth move?” It has been repeated, usually in humorous fashion, ever since.

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early bird catches the worm, the

Those who get there first have the best chance of success. This stricture appeared in William Camden’s book of proverbs (1605) and has remained part of the work ethic ever since.

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days are numbered, one’s/his/its

One’s life or usefulness is about to end. Perhaps the earliest instance of this expression is in the Book of Daniel, in which Daniel reads King Belshazzar’s fate in the writing on the wall: “God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it” (Daniel 5:26). Another early version appears in a collection of Chinese proverbs made by William Scarborough (1875): “Man’s days are numbered.” See also NUMBER’S UP.

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day of reckoning

The time when one is called to account. The idea no doubt comes from the biblical Day of Judgment, when Jesus is supposed to return to earth for God’s final sentence on mankind. The day of reckoning came to have a somewhat more benign meaning, referring to paying one’s debts, or accounting for one’s actions. The expression became common in the nineteenth century. “There will be a day of reckoning sooner or later,” wrote Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, 1838).

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day in, day out

All day and every day, regularly, constantly. The expression was so defined in a dialect book by W. Carr in 1828 and was widely used by the end of the century. It was a cliché by the time C. Day Lewis used it in describing his school days in his autobiography, The Buried Day
(1960): “One boy . . . was kicked around, jeered at or ostracised, day in day out for several years.”

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dawn on (someone), to

To perceive or understand for the first time. See LIGHT DAWNED.

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dawn on (someone), to

An unexpected potential winner. The term dates from the nineteenth century and comes from racing, where a horse is termed “dark” when its ancestry and history are unknown. It was so used by Benjamin Disraeli in his novel, The Young Duke (1831), but the precise origin is obscure. Some think it comes from the owner’s dyeing a horse’s hair to disguise it and so get better odds; others cite the practice of a particular American horse trader who made his fast black stallion look like an ordinary saddle horse, rode into town, set up a race, and consistently came out a winner. The term was soon transferred to political candidates on both sides of the Atlantic. The first American presidential dark horse was James Polk, who won the 1844 Democratic nomination only on the eighth ballot and went on to become president.

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can’t call one’s soul one’s own

To be very much in debt or bondage to another; to have lost one’s independence. This turn of phrase dates from the sixteenth century and has been repeated ever since. In Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop (1841, Chapter 4), “She daren’t call her soul her own” is said of Mrs. Quilp, wife of the tyrannical dwarf, Daniel.

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can of worms, it’s a/like opening a

Introducing a complicated prob- lem or unsolvable dilemma. The metaphor alludes to the live bait of fisher- men. In a jar or other container, they form an inextricable tangle, wriggling and entwining themselves with one another. The term is American in origin, dating from the mid-twentieth century.

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cannot

See entries beginning with CAN’T; also YOU CAN’T.

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camp follower

One who follows a group without being part of it. The practice originated with the families of recruits, prostitutes, and traveling merchants, who would settle near a military encampment. Later it was extended to others who benefited from military installations. The term itself may come from a letter written by the duke of Wellington in 1810.
In mid-twentieth-century America the camp followers of rock musicians and other entertainers, mostly young women who followed their idols on tour, acquired the name groupie, which then was extended to any ardent fan.

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calm before the storm, the

A sense of foreboding, during a particularly serene period, that violence is on its way. “Fair weather brings on cloudy weather” is an ancient Greek proverb. Numerous writers from approximately 1200 on also are recorded as saying that calm will come after a storm. Transferring fair and foul weather to human affairs, particularly to good fortune and adversity, and to peace and war, are also very old. “It is a common fault of men not to reckon on storms in fair weather,” wrote Machiavelli in The Prince (1513). In modern times the phrase frequently has been applied to an uneasy peacetime, when war seemed imminent. It was so used in the late
1930s, when it was already a cliché.
camel through a needle’s eye, a An impossibility. The whole phrase, which comes from the Gospels of St. Matthew (19:24) and St. Mark (10:25), states that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God. Variants appear in both Jewish religious writings and in the Islamic Koran. The thought is repeated by Shakespeare in Richard II (5.5): “It is as hard to come as for a camel to thread the postern of a small needle’s eye.”

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bag and baggage

All one’s belongings, usually in the sense of departing with them. It originally was a military phrase that meant all of an army’s property and was so used in the fifteenth century. To march away with bag and baggage meant that the army was leaving but was surrendering nothing
to the enemy. The alliterative nature of the term has appealed to many writers, including Shakespeare. In As You Like It Touchstone says, “Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage,” meaning the purse and its contents (money).
In time the connotation of honorable departure was dropped and the term simply described clearing out completely. “‘Bag and baggage,’ said she, ‘I’m glad you’re going,’” declared Samuel Richardson’s heroine in Pamela (1741). See also KIT AND CABOODLE.

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bad penny, always turns up (comes back) like a

The unwanted or worthless object or person is sure to return. A proverb in several languages besides English, this expression dates from the days when coins had intrinsic worth and a bad penny (or shilling or crown) was one that was made of inferior metal or contained less metal than it should.

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bad hair day

A day when everything seems to go wrong. The term originally meant merely that one’s appearance, especially one’s hair, does not look attractive. Dating from about 1980, it soon was extended to mean having a bad day. The Denver Post had it in 1994: “Soon you will notice how much less complaining you do, even on bad hair days.”

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bad blood

Anger or animosity, between individuals or groups. The blood was long regarded as the seat of human emotion, and by the sixteenth century it was particularly associated with high temper and anger. “To breed bad (or ill) blood” meant to stir up hard feelings. In the late eighteenth century both Jonathan Swift in England and Thomas Jefferson in America wrote of ill blood in this way, and a few years later the English essayist Charles Lamb wrote of bad blood.

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back to the wall, with one’s

Hard-pressed; making a last-ditch defen- sive stand. The term embodies the idea that backing up against a wall pre- vents an attack from behind, but it also indicates that one has been forced back to this position and no further retreat is possible. Although it had been used since the sixteenth century and was already colloquial in nineteenth- century Britain, the term became famous near the end of World War I through an order to the British troops given by General Douglas Haig and reported in the London Times on April 13, 1918: “Every position must be held to the last man. . . . With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end.

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all that glitters is not gold

Appearances can be deceiving. A proverbial saying since the late Middle Ages, it appears in numerous languages to this day. O. Henry wrote a story entitled “The Gold That Glittered,” and two other writers observed in addition that “all isn’t garbage that smells.”

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all systems go

Everything is ready for action. The term is relatively new, originating in the space launches of the 1960s, and became well known through widespread television coverage of these events. John Powers, the public information officer for the United States space program from 1959
to 1964, would announce, “All systems go. Everything is A-OK.” The phrase soon was extended to other endeavors.

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all’s fair in love and war

Any tactic or strategy is permissible. The idea was expressed for centuries by numerous writers, from Chaucer (Troilus and Criseyde) to Maxwell Anderson (What Price Glory?). Modern versions sometimes add or substitute another enterprise, such as “in love and war and politics”
(George Ade), or “in love and tennis (or any other competitive sport).”

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all roads lead to Rome

Any of several choices will lead to the same result. The metaphor is based on the ancient empire’s system of roads, which radiated from the capital like the spokes of a wheel. As a figure of speech it appeared as early as the twelfth century. It was used by Chaucer, and occurs in numerous other languages as well.

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all present and accounted for Everyone (or everything) is here

This cliché originated in the military as a response to roll call and actually is redundant—if one is present one is also accounted for. The British version, all present and correct, where correct means “in order,” makes more sense but did not cross the Atlantic.

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