Previously I wrote about the common expressions we use daily, and that i devoted to the themes of animals and music. I ended the trivia about animals having a promise to deal with more ‘general’ idioms in the same fashion.
Accordingly, I am going to ‘start from scratch’ and explain how in the past, this expression referred to competitive sports in which a starting line was scratched inside the dirt. Imaginable this meant a ‘race’ (or competition), might be held absolutely anywhere.
A little variation – ‘come (or perhaps) approximately scratch’ – belonged for the boxing ring, wherein a contestant, once knocked down, was allowed a 30 second interval, and then another 8 seconds to regain the ability to come unaided with a line marked in the centre from the ring, or…’up to scratch’.
At the essential core of the stuff may be the ‘nitty gritty’ – everyone knows that. But should we also understand that originally this referred to an unclean scalp (by using an equally unclean, poor or rough person), and also to the inevitable nits or lice creating a build-up of scales, with an itch that needs to be scratched. Easy then to follow along with the logic of probing deeply to go to the foot of the challenge.
Many times, an appealing plan or outcome is reliant on ‘touch and go’, and we understand the words to clearly indicate a decidedly risky undertaking. However, an adult definition originated from the times of stagecoaches along with the fierce in most cases unfriendly competitive nature of the journeys. Inside their frenzied efforts to overtake the other person, dangerous tactics could mean the real difference between a ‘touch’ (or entanglement of wheels with diabolical consequences) along with a ‘go’ (in which the ‘touch’ was light enough to permit continuance without harm to either stagecoach). So we are able to observe how our ‘plan’ gets a finely balanced matter, capable of toppling over at the least ‘wrong touch’ or miscalculated step.
The idea of ‘throwing someone from the scent’, whilst meaning now to divert interest far from what’s actually happening, simultaneously invokes clear pictures of an sniffer dog about the trail of the fugitive, being somehow distracted from his focus. It clearly follows that the well-trained and experienced hound rarely loses this enlightening ‘scent’ without extraordinary distraction.
Before, it is included the well-known crossing of water, however newer reports have found out that a keen hound can certainly still smell the fugitive in the air above the water, thus requiring him to swim for a considerable distance in rapidly moving waters before re-emerging onto land again. Another cruel approach has been to sprinkle pepper over the ‘path’ to significantly interrupt his ability for a few hours, and also permanently damage the fine inner structure and convenience of that sensational nose and scenting ability.
Since the dog is following a particular individual’s scent, plus the countless skin cells which might be dropped constantly even as we move, there is very little an answer to the fugitive. That’s doubtful much wish for anybody just trying to divert attention, either. This indicates there’s really no option except to ‘face the music’ and ‘stand and deliver’ reality.
The gorgeous white strip down a horse’s face is termed a ‘blaze’, and interestingly, is really for this idiom ‘to blaze a trail’. Every time a pioneer or explorer wished others to find out and stick to the direction he was taking, particularly by way of a forest or treed area, although chip off bark from your conspicuous tree at regular intervals. The newly bared spot would look almost white – such as the horse’s blaze – hence ‘trail-blazers’ who most certainly didn’t desire to throw their followers ‘off the scent’.
And finally, whenever we hear that a competitor ‘wins hands down’, we have been in without doubt that this would have been a clear and exceptional victory with a wide winning margin. Few know these words have their origins in horse-racing parlance. When it’s an end finish to your race, the jockey will probably be gripping the reins and wielding his whip furiously to aim a victory ‘by a nose’.
However, if victory is clear and easy, he will not only relax his grip, but also in a gesture of absolute domination and contempt, actually drop the reins altogether and his hands to his sides, thus ‘winning hands down’. Oh-h-h, the humiliation for his followers!
So, the very next time one of these succinct sayings slip from a lips, you could smile while you remember ‘from whence they came’, and maybe wonder, while i often do, what number of today’s expressions will ‘go the distance’ of the golden oldies.
