Definition: The power of the police and judicial system

Example: Terry thought that nobody could catch  him for robbing the bank dressed as Mickey Mouse, but the long arm of the law tracked him down.

Origin:

The long arm of the law refers to the far reaching powers of law enforcement authorities and is a very visual phrase. Just picture those long arms reaching for you…..

Its first usage seems to have referred to royalty, coined in the sixteenth century phrase ‘Kings have long arms’.

By the nineteenth century, it was law enforcement that had  long arms in common language. In fact, the law’s arm had more than mere length. They had strength as well, described in another common phrase, less used today, ‘the strong arm of the law‘. At the end of those  long and strong arms, yet another phrase described ‘the strong hand of the law‘. This particular one seems to refer to the practise of the police laying a hand upon your shoulder when arresting you. This habit coined a fourth phrase, that of the arrest being ‘a collar‘, as often the guilty party tried to take flight and the officer grabbed the first thing available…. his collar.

So. Four phrases. All from the single idea that justice will find you, no matter where you hide.

Iddy doesn’t care about that though. He just wants to know how he’s ever going to get his arm back to the right length.

Definition: Tell a secret

Example: After three hours intensive grilling by her friends, Sharon finally broke down to spill the beans about her night out with the vicar.

Origin:

‘Spill the beans’ is one of several idioms , similarly phrased, with the same meaning. There’s ‘Spill the soup‘, ‘Spill your guts‘, or the simple and to the point command, ‘Spill!” Spill is used in the manner of letting something out. But beans? Why beans?

There is a widely discounted explanation to do with ancient Greece. Voting in some situations called for the anonymous placing of beans in an urn. White for ‘Yay‘. Black for ‘Nay‘. The vote had to be unanimous. So, if somebody knocked over the urn before voting was complete revealing even a single black one, thus ‘spilling the beans‘, the vote was ruined. Sounds excellent. However, there are two millennia between those alleged bean votes and the introduction of the phrase into language.

That first modern usage dates back to early 20th century America. Its meaning then was subtly different, more like talking out of turn and causing trouble. A bit like the wartime slogan ‘Loose lips sink ships‘.

Iddy’s still not sure why it is beans that need to be spilled. He’d prefer toffees. Or caramels.

Definition: A very important person

Example: Mr. Peabody was a big wig in town. After all, he owned most of it. 

Origin:

Its not a great stretch of the imagination to figure out how the phrase ‘big wig‘ came to be.

It owes a lot to the Sun King himself, Louis XIII. Louis was bald, or ‘follicly challenged’ as he preferred his condition to be described. So, he took to wearing wigs. His group of hangers-on in the court of Versailles took to wearing them as well. Then, the rest of the French aristocracy. Then the the rest of the upper echelon of Europe followed suit. And then the competition began. The bigger, the more extravagant the wig, the better. Decoration was widely encouraged.

Obviously, the buying and maintenance of such extraordinary constructions were an expensive business. Only the wealthiest, most influential people could afford them. As a rule of thumb; the bigger the wig, the more important the person.

On a little side note, before these piles of hairs became known as ‘wigs’, they were known by the more flowery term ‘periwigs’. Iddy thinks the world is a slightly sadder place with the shortening of the term.

Definition: A creative group technique to stimulate ideas

Example: Doyle and his two co-workers spent most of the day brainstorming a name for the client’s new biscuits. The best they could come up with was “Yummies’. They did manage to eat all the samples though.

Origin:

Iddy’s not sure if  brainstorming is a true idiom, or simply a term, but it confused the heck out of him, so here we go…

It was coined by advertising executive Alex F. Osborn in the 1950s. It was a technique he pioneered when he realised individuals were not coming up with many ideas within his agency. Throwing them together in a room, probably with lots of coffee, yielded far more creative ideas.

He had four components to create the perfect brainstorming session:

1. QUANTITY. The more ideas, the better
2. NO CRITICS. There is no such thing as a bad idea at the session.
3. BE WILD. Encourage crazy thinking
4. COMBINE TO IMPROVE. Throw ideas together to see if they can complement each other.

Now sit back and watch the creative lightning rain down from the heavens!

Definition: Stay out of trouble!

Example: Robby tried his best to keep his nose clean as he didn’t want to go back to prison. But the wedding cake in the bakery window was begging to be stolen.

Origin:

There are a lot of claims as to the origin of this idiom…

1)  It is a 1970s reference to cocaine usage, but the term predates this assertion by a century.

2) It is a childhood warning about personal hygiene and the spreading of germs through runny noses. There seems to be little supporting evidence for this.

3) It is a warning over the abuse of alcohol, that the foam from an upturned glass of beer ‘dirties’ the nose. Still not sold.

What we do know is that there was an earlier UK English phrase ‘keep your hands clean‘ which upon crossing the Atlantic to America, somehow morphed into keep your nose clean. It then returned to the UK and replaced the original phrase. Its meaning changed as well during its ocean crossing. The first version had more of a personal hygiene meaning, but in the States it took on more of a avoiding corruption twist. Most recently however, it seems to relate exclusively to the world of crime. Somebody keeping their nose clean is staying out of criminal activity.

Iddy’s had to borrow somebody else’s nose in order to illustrate the idiom. He doesn’t have one of his own.

Definition: To be kind or generous

Example: Despite the fact that Bella frowns her way through life, she actually has a heart of gold.

Origin:

Having a heart of gold has been with us for quite some time. It appears in William Shakespeare’s play Henry V, written about 1599. The simple explanation is that gold was, and still is, thought of as both pure and precious. These are characteristics you can apply to somebody’s personality, and thus, their heart.

Iddy doesn’t have a gold one himself. I don’t know who he stole that one from. His own is probably made of the blackest carbon. Don’t let that smile fool you!

Definition: To stay calm, composed, and collected

Example: Despite the intense pressure, Stan stayed cool as a cucumber and defeated his five-year-old nephew in the game of tiddlywinks.

Origin:

This is a strange one. How somebody’s bearing under pressure should be compared to a vegetable is not just unclear, it’s totally nonsensical on every level. Yes, cucumbers are cool to the touch, and can be as much as twenty degrees cooler inside than the outside air, but the cool in the phrase has nothing to do with temperature. And it’s older than you might think. Its first appearance in print is in a 1732 poem by John Gay.

Iddy, as pictured, has used the 1970’s derived definition of cool, that of somebody socially admired. Just like the Fonz was on Happy Days. Funny. Looking at him, you’d never have thought Iddy to be in awe of custom motorcycles….