cat’s paw, (be made) a

A dupe, a sucker who does another person’s dirty work. The term comes from an ancient tale about a monkey who wanted to get some roasted chestnuts out of the fire and, not wanting to burn his own fingers, got his friend the cat to use his paws for this purpose. There are numerous versions of the story in various languages; often it is a dog that is made the dupe, but in English it is the cat’s paw that has stuck over the years. Also see PULL THE CHESTNUTS

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beer and skittles, (life is) not all

Life is not all FUN AND GAMES. Skit- tles, a kind of bowling game played by throwing wooden disks at pins, was very popular in Great Britain, where drinking beer remains a widespread form of recreation. Pairing the two came about quite naturally in the nine- teenth century. Dickens’s Sam Weller assures Mr. Pickwick, who is about to enter a debtor’s prison, that the prisoners enjoy themselves there: “It’s a regular holiday to them—all porter and skittles” (Pickwick Papers). But Dick- ens’s contemporary Thomas Hughes observed that “Life isn’t all beer and skittles” (Tom Brown’s School Days). Essentially a British cliché, it spread to America but is heard less often today. Legendary adman David Ogilvy had it in Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963): “Managing an advertising agency is not all beer and skittles.”

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cat on a hot tin roof, like a

Skittish, nervous, ill at ease. A similar anal- ogy—“like a cat on a hot bake-stone”—appeared in John Ray’s Proverbs of 1678. It was later replaced by “like a cat on hot bricks,” still used in the mid- twentieth century, but Tennessee Williams preferred the more picturesque “hot tin roof ” for the title of his 1955 play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

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been there, done that

I’ve had this experience and I’m bored with it. The implication of this relatively new and seemingly worldweary statement is, why bother to repeat something I’ve seen or done. However, it is also used as an expression of empathy, as in “You’ve offered to take care of the children for a week? Been there, done that.” The phrase dates only from the early 1980s and at first referred to tourism and sightseeing, but soon was extended to just about any activity. Moreover, it became overused so quickly that it became a cliché virtually in a decade and a half. Also see SEEN ONE, SEEN THEM ALL.

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cat got your tongue, has the

Why are you silent? According to Eric Partridge, this term dates from the mid-nineteenth century in both England and the United States and was one of several phrases used in addressing a child who, after getting into trouble, refused to answer questions. The lit- eral meaning is quite far-fetched, so it obviously comes from the grown- up’s invention of some bizarre circumstance that prevents the child from speaking. There is an analogous French idiom, “I throw [or give] my tongue to the cat,” meaning “I give up; I have nothing to say.”

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bee in one’s bonnet, to have a

To have a strange fixation about some- thing; to have an eccentric idea or fantasy. A version of the term appears in Robert Herrick’s “Mad Maid’s Song” (c. 1648): “. . . the bee which bore my love away, I’ll seek him in your bonnet brave.” Allegedly the expression stems from the analogy of a bee buzzing inside one’s hat to a peculiar idea in one’s head. It has been a cliché since the eighteenth century. Lest one think it is obsolete, it appeared in a 2004 murder mystery: “By the way, what bee got into your bonnet at the meeting? Bailey had been pretty cooperative” (David Baldacci, Hour Game).

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catch (someone)

with his pants down, to To embarrass someone, to surprise someone when he is at a disadvantage. The term is American and there are several theories about its origin. One holds that it comes from a husband catching another man with his wife. Another claims it refers to an enemy catching a soldier relieving himself.

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bed of roses, a

A delightful place, a very pleasant situation. The metaphor was employed by English poets from Christopher Marlowe on. Today it is often used in a negative sense—that is, some situation is not a bed of roses. Indeed, the metaphor lacks literal truth anyway, as garden expert Allen Lacy pointed out in a NewYork Times column of 1987: “A bed of roses isn’t, considering all the fussy care they require—remove faded blos- soms, minor pruning, spraying, dusting.”

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catch-22

Situation in which one can’t win because one is trapped by a paradox. The term was the title of a 1961 war novel by Joseph Heller. It refers to an Air Force rule whereby a pilot is considered insane if he contin- ues to fly combat missions without asking for relief, but if he asks for relief he is considered sane enough to continue flying. The term was further popu- larized by a motion picture and today is used to describe common dilemmas in civilian life. Opera singer Renée Fleming described it well: “For potential engagements, the catch-22 was that it was very hard to get an audition if you didn’t have a manager, and it was almost impossible to get a manager unless you’d won an audition” (The Inner Voice, 2004). See also DAMNED IF YOU DO, DAMNED IF YOU DON’T.

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bed and board

Lodging and food; by extension, the essentials one works for. Originally the term meant the full connubial rights of a wife as mistress of her household. The marriage service in the York Manual (c. 1403) states: “Here I take . . . to be my wedded wyfe, to hald and to have at bed and at borde, for fayrer for layther, for better for wers . . . till ded us depart.”

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catch (someone) red-handed, to

To apprehend in the act of committing a crime. The term, which alludes to the presence of blood on the hands of a murderer, originally referred only to that crime. Later it was extended to mean the same as “to catch in the act,” an English translation of the Latin in flagrante delicto, taken from the Roman code and long used in law. “I did but tie one fellow, who was taken red-handed,” wrote Sir Walter Scott in Ivanhoe (1819).

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at swords’ points

Openly hostile. This term obviously refers to sword- fighting, long a thing of the past, but it has not died out. Mary McCarthy used it in her novel, The Group (1963): “Mrs. Hartshorn and her dead husband had had a running battle over Wilson and the League, and now Priss and Sloan were at swords’ points over Roosevelt and socialized medicine.” A synonymous expression it is at daggers drawn, first recorded in 1668 but used figuratively only from the 1800s. Robert B. Brough, Marston Lynch, His Life and Times (1870) had it: “Was Marston still at daggers drawn with his rich uncle?

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at sixes and sevens

In disarray or confusion. The term comes from a game of dice in which throwing a six or seven has special significance, as it does in modern craps. There is considerable disagreement as to the precise game, or even if “six” or “seven” are not corruptions of sinque (five) and sice (six). Erasmus quoted a proverb to that effect, but, since dicing is very old indeed, the idea may be much older yet.

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at sea, to be/all

To be bewildered, to have lost one’s way. Presumably it reflects the idea of literally having lost one’s bearings while at sea. It was so used by Dickens and other nineteenth-century writers

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at one’s wits’ end, to be

To be at a total loss, completely perplexed. “Wits” here means mental capacity or ability to think. The term was used by Chaucer (Troilus and Criseyde) and William Langland (Piers Ploughman) in the late fourteenth century and has been a cliché since the eighteenth century.

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at one’s fingertips

Ready, instantly available; at one’s command. The term refers to both cognizance and competence—that is, it can mean either knowledge or the ability to carry out a task. Presumably it is based on something being as close at hand and familiar as one’s own fingers. Its roots may lie in an ancient Roman proverb, “To know as well as one’s fingers and toes,” which in English became one’s fingers’ ends (in the proverb collec- tions of John Heywood, John Ray, and others). Fingertips appears to have originated in the United States in the nineteenth century.

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at one’s beck and call

Required to tend to someone’s wishes; totally under someone’s control. The obsolete noun beck, which survives only in this cliché, meant a mute signal or gesture of command, such as a nod of the head or a pointing of the finger; the verbal form, to beckon, still exists, as does call, for a vocal summons.

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at one fell swoop

A single operation, often a violent one. This term was coined by Shakespeare, who used the metaphor of a hell-kite (probably a vulture) killing chickens for the murder of Macduff ’s wife and children: “Oh, Hell-Kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop?” (Macbeth, 4.3). The adjective fell was Old English for “fierce” or “savage.”

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at long last

Finally, after a long delay. The expression has been traced to the sixteenth century and was usually put as “at the long last,” last then being a noun meaning “duration.” Eric Partridge cited its perhaps most famous use, the opening words of the abdication speech of King Edward VIII in 1935, when he gave up the British throne in order to marry a divorced woman. By then it had long been a cliché.

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at loggerheads, to be

To disagree, dispute, or quarrel. A logger was a heavy wooden block, and one meaning of “loggerhead” is “blockhead,” a stu- pid person or dolt. Possibly this meaning led to the phrase “at loggerheads,” with the idea that only dolts would engage in a quarrel. Shakespeare used the word as an adjective in The Taming of the Shrew (4.1): “You loggerheaded and unpolish’d grooms.” The full current expression appeared in the late seventeenth century.

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at a snail’s pace

Very slowly. The slowness of snails was pointed out about 200 B.C. by the Roman poet Plautus and the term “snail’s pace” in English goes back to about 1400. Relative to its size, however, a snail travels a considerable distance each day, using the undersurface of its muscular foot to propel itself.

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fast one

See PULL A FAST ONE.

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fast lane/track, in/on the

An exciting, competitive, high-pressure activ- ity or life-style. Alluding to the express lane of highways and (originally) rail- road lines, this metaphor originated about the middle of the twentieth century and may refer not only to hectic high-pressure activity but also to rapid advancement. Richard M. Nixon used it in 1965: “New York . . . is a place where you can’t slow down—a fast track” (New York Times Magazine).

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fast and loose

See PLAY  FAST AND  LOOSE.

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fast and furious

Rapid and intense. This alliterative phrase dates from the eighteenth century. It appeared in Robert Burns’s poem “Tam o’ Shanter” (1793): “The mirth and fun grew fast and furious.” It often is applied to extreme gaiety.

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far out

Excellent; also, daringly unusual. This slangy expression origi- nated in jazz about 1950, where it was used for particularly avant-garde performances. Almost immediately it was extended to mean outstanding. It is used both as an adjective (“this performance is far out”) and as an inter- jection (“This is great—far out!”). Its overuse soon made it a cliché.

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ends of the earth, (from) the

The remotest parts of the globe. The phrase first appeared in the Bible: “All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God” (Psalms 98:3). This turn of phrase is based on the idea of a flat earth, which actually has “ends.” Nevertheless, it survived the general acknowledg- ment that the globe is spherical and was a cliché by the late nineteenth century.

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end run

An evasive maneuver, a diversion. The term, dating from about 1900, is a transfer from football, where it denotes a running play in which the ball carrier runs around the defensive end. It soon was transferred to other contexts. An editorial in the Boston Globe about allowing drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge had it: “. . . they now plan to include drilling in the budget bill, which cannot be filibustered. Senators should see this gim- mick for the procedural end run it is, and reject it.” (Jan. 31, 2005).

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end of the world, it’s not/wouldn’t be the

It’s not that disastrous a calamity. This hyperbole of reassurance dates from the late nineteenth century. George Bernard Shaw used it in Major Barbara (1907): “Nothing’s going to hap- pen to you . . . it wouldn’t be the end of the world if anything did.”

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end of one’s rope/tether, at the/come to the

To have exhausted one’s resources or abilities. The term alludes to a tethered (roped) animal that can graze only as far as the length of the rope permits. “Being run to the end of his Rope, as one that had no more Excuses to make,” wrote Sir John Chardin in 1686 (The Coronation of Solyman the Third). “I am at the end of my tether” was close to being a cliché by the time Royall Tyler used the line in his comedy The Contrast (first U.S. production in 1787).

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end game

The concluding stage of some process. The term originated about 1880 in the game of chess, where it means the late stage of a game when most of the pieces have been removed from the board. It began to be used fig- uratively in the mid-1900s, as in, “We hope this diplomatic end game will result in a peace treaty.”

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difference between chalk and cheese

See APPLES AND ORANGES

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die with one’s boots on

See DIE  IN  HARNESS.

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die like a dog, to

To meet a miserable end. Actually, to lead a dog’s life is no better, a fact pointed out about the same time that “die like a dog” first surfaced in print. “He lyved like a lyon and dyed like a dogge,” wrote John Rastell (The Pastyme of People, 1529). In ancient Greek times dying like a dog was even worse because it signified being left unburied, a fate regarded with dread. See also A DOG’S LIFE.

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die is cast, the

A final decision has been made; there is no turning back. The term comes from Julius Caesar’s invasion of Italy in 49 B.C. (see CROSS THE RUBICON). According to Suetonius’s account, Caesar said Jacta alea est (The dice have been thrown), which has been repeated through the ages whenever a figurative player must abide by the result of a throw of the dice. It was a cliché by the time George Meredith wrote, “The die is cast—I can- not go back” (The Egoist, 1879).

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die in harness, to

To keep on working to the end. The analogy of a draft horse working until it drops dates from Shakespeare’s time (or earlier). “At least we’ll die with harness on our back,” says Macbeth before his fateful battle with Macduff (Macbeth, 5.5). Such a death, incidentally, is considered desirable and admirable. “It is a man dying with his harness on that angels love to escort upward,” said the American preacher Henry Ward Beecher (Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887). Precisely the same is meant by to die with one’s boots on, although more likely this expression comes from the bat- tlefield (soldiers dying on active duty).

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