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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