give one’s eyeteeth for, to

To yearn for; to go to any lengths to obtain. The eyeteeth, the upper canines, have been so called since the sixteenth century, presumably because their nerves are quite close to the eyes and a toothache in those teeth is felt as pain in that area. Since they are extremely useful for biting and chewing, giving up one’s eyeteeth entails a consider- able sacrifice. However, this hyperbole most likely began life as to give one’s eyes, a greater sacrifice still. Anthony Trollope used it in Barchester Towers (1857): “Bertie would give his eyes to go with you.” Substituting eyeteeth, it is a safe guess, simply made the expression more colorful rather than affecting the underlying meaning in any way. It appeared in W. Somerset Maugham’s Cakes and Ale (1930): “He’d give his eyeteeth to have written a book half as good.” See also CUT ONE’S TEETH ON; GIVE ONE’S RIGHT ARM.

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give no quarter

See GRANT  NO  QUARTER.

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give me a break

That’s preposterous, you can’t expect me to believe that. This exasperated reply to a statement, usually made half-jokingly, dates from the second half of the 1900s. For example, “She’s planning a luncheon at the Ritz? Give me a break!” This expression is not the same as to give some- one a break, meaning to give someone an opportunity or special considera- tion, which dates from about 1900.

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give it one’s best shot, to

To try one’s hardest; to expend optimum effort. Originally a military term, best shot in the sixteenth century denoted the soldiers who could most accurately shoot the enemy, according to William Safire. However, the word shot also had meant an attempt or a try from the mid-eighteenth century on, casting some doubt on this and other etymologies, which trace the term to billiards and boxing. In any event, in the twentieth century it became commonly used in politics (“The candidate was willing to give it her best shot”), as well as in other contexts. David Bal- dacci had it in Hour Game (2004): “‘If you can wake them up....’— ‘We’ll give it our best shot,’ said King.”

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give a wide berth to, to

To avoid. This term, which in the eighteenth cen- tury literally meant to give a ship plenty of room to swing at anchor, was transferred to other objects of avoidance and soon became a cliché. “I recom- mend you to keep a wide berth of me, sir,” wrote Thackeray (The Newcomes, 1854).

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give (someone) an inch and they’ll take a mile

Yield only a little and you’ll be taken advantage of. This expression began life as a proverb, “Give him an inch and he’ll take an ell,” cited in Heywood’s 1546 collection. Around the turn of the twentieth century mile entered the picture, as in W. D. Steele’s The ManWho Saw Through Heaven (1927): “Give these old fellows an inch and they’ll take a mile.”

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give and take

Mutual concessions; a fair exchange. Used as a noun, this expression dates from the eighteenth century. (The verbal form, to give and take, dates from the early 1500s.) One writer believes the phrase originated in British racing and denoted a prize for a race in which larger horses car- ried more weight and smaller ones less than the standard. “Give and take is fair in all nations,” wrote Fannie Burney in Evelina (1778), echoed in T. C. Haliburton’s Wise Saws (1843): “Give and take, live and let live, that’s the word.” See also LIVE AND LET LIVE.

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give a bad name to, to

To speak ill of someone or something in order to give it a bad reputation. This term comes from the proverb, “Give a dog an ill name and hang him,” quoted in James Kelly’s collection of Scottish proverbs (1721). It has been a cliché since about 1800.

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girl/man Friday

Trusted assistant. This term comes from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), in which Crusoe found a young savage on a Friday, and this man became his faithful servant and companion on the desert island. “I take my man Friday with me,” said Crusoe. Some mid-twentieth-century advertising pundit invented “girl Friday”—or gal Friday—to describe the female clerk-of-all-work, presumably on the assumption that it lent some glamour to a low-level, poorly paid position. It caught on mainly through being used as the title of a 1940 motion picture starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, His Girl Friday. In the 1970s, when affirmative action came to the American labor market, the term fell into disrepute.

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gird (up) one’s loins, to

To prepare for action (hard work, a journey, warfare). The term comes from the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, and uses gird in the sense of “encircle with a belt or band.” The ancient Jews wore loose clothing and put on a girdle, or belt, only when they went to work or set out to travel. Thus, “He girded up his loins, and ran” appears in I Kings (18:76), and “Gird up now thy loins like a man” in Job (in several passages). It had already become figurative in the New Testament, where 1 Peter has it, “Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober” (1:13).

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gild the lily, to

To add excessive ornament; to pile excess on excess. This term is a condensation of Shakespeare’s statement in King John (4.2), “To gild refined gold, to paint the lily . . . is wasteful and ridiculous excess.” Earlier (sixteenth-century) versions of this idea cited whitening ivory with ink (Erasmus, Adagia) and painting fine marble (George Pettie, Petite Pal- lace). Byron quoted Shakespeare correctly (“But Shakespeare also says, ’tis very silly to gild refined gold, or paint the lily”), in Don Juan (1818), but sometime during the succeeding years it became the cliché we now know.

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gift of gab

Fluency of speech; also, a tendency to boast. Gab, both the noun meaning “speech” and the verb meaning “to chatter,” is believed to have come from the Gaelic dialect word gob, for “mouth.” Indeed it so appeared in Samuel Colvil’s Whiggs Supplication (1695): “There was a man called Job . . . He had a good gift of the Gob.” During the next century it became gab, as in William Godwin’s Caleb Williams (1794): “He knew well enough that he had the gift of the gab.” Later “the” was dropped.

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ghost of a chance

See NOT A  GHOST  OF A  CHANCE.

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ghost of a chance

See NOT A  GHOST  OF A  CHANCE.

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get wind of something, to

To acquire knowledge; to hear a rumor. This expression transfers the ability of many animals to detect the approach of others from their scent carried by the wind. Originating about 1800, the term appeared in print in B. H. Malkin’s translation of Gil Blas (1809): “The corregidor . . . got wind of our correspondence.”

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get up on the wrong side of bed

See GOT UP ON THE WRONG SIDE OF BED.

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get up and go

Vital energy, enthusiasm. The Random House Unabridged Dictionary (1987) hyphenates this term and lists it as a noun, originating in the United States in the early years of this century. However, it has numer- ous precedents, the most common of which was get up and get, still used in some parts of the United States (President Lyndon Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird, was quoted as saying it in the early 1960s). The OED gives a 1907 use of the current cliché: “I wish . . . folk here had a little git-up-and-go to them” (N. Munro, Daft Days).

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get under someone’s skin, to

To annoy someone. This expression no doubt alludes to the irritation caused by burrowing insects, which can cause intense itching. Cole Porter, however, used the expression quite differently in his song, “I’ve Got You under My Skin” (from Born to Dance, 1936), which describes a romantic addiction to a person rather than an insect infestation or a persistent annoyance.

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get to the point, to

To speak plainly; to address the main issue. This expression, which in British parlance is usually phrased come to the point, dates from Chaucer’s time. Chaucer himself wrote in the “Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales, “This is the poynt, to speken short and pleyn.”

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get to the bottom of

See BOTTOM  OF  IT.

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