See GRASP AT STRAWS.
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clothes make the man
Outer appearances are very important. The thought appears in ancient Babylonian writings, and Erasmus’s collection of adages (1523) refers to the fact that the statement “Clothes are the man” appeared in Homer and numerous ancient Latin sources. In sixteenth- century England it was usually put as “apparel” rather than “clothes”; Shakespeare’s Polonius pontificates, “The apparel oft proclaims the man”
(Hamlet, 1.3). It was a cliché by the nineteenth century.
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close ranks
Unite against a common opponent, present a united front. The term originated in the 1600s in the military, where it also was put as “to close files.” It alluded to the style of battle in which the troops were aligned side by side in neat rows; the order to “close ranks” meant to move the rows closer together, creating a seemingly impenetrable mass of men. The term was soon being used figuratively and became a cliché. For example, “Will the wankel [engine] be enough to sustain NSU as an independent motor company, or will NSU one day have to close ranks further with Citroen?”
(Economist, Sept. 2, 1967).
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close quarters, at/in
Crowded, in a confined space. The term comes from eighteenth-century naval warfare. Wooden barriers were placed at vari- ous points on a ship, so that when an enemy boarded, the crew could retreat behind them and fire at the enemy through loopholes. The crew then were said to be fighting in close quarters, that is, in close contact with the enemy. The term later was transferred to any close contact or crowded situation
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close call/shave, a
A narrow escape, a near miss. Both phrases are origi- nally American. The first dates from the 1880s and is thought to come from sports, where a close call was a decision by an umpire or referee that could have gone either way. A close shave is from the early nineteenth century and reflects the narrow margin between smoothly shaved skin and a nasty cut from the razor. Both were transferred to mean any narrow escape from dan- ger. Incidentally, a close shave was in much earlier days equated with miserli- ness. Erasmus’s 1523 collection of adages has it, “He shaves right to the quick,” meaning he makes the barber give him a very close shave so that he will not need another for some time. Two synonymous modern clichés are too close for comfort and too close to home.
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