05-18-2004, 07:14 PM
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<----Snappin' Pussy
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Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Queensland, Australia
Posts: 106,936
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Re: Historical Trivia!
Arm and a Leg ~ 3 options
It most certainly means (to the effect) "I would sacrifice a LOT". I've always wondered if it were rooted in Shakespeare. "Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is that word, honour? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it:- therefore, I'll none of it: Honour is a mere scutcheon, and so ends my catechism." Shakespeare.-King Henry IV. Part I. Act V. Scene 1. (Falstaff.)
Eric Partridge, "A Dictionary of Catch Phrases." says this phrase comes from the U.S. and that its probable origin is another phrase, "if it takes a leg!" About the latter phrase, he says "'Threat of a desperado, in search of revenge' (George P. Burnham, 'Memoirs of the United States Secret Service,' 1872): US underworld: c. 1850-1910. Even at the cost of a leg."
There's another Brewer's entry that sounds like it might have a connection: Chance one's arm - "To run a risk in the hope of succeeding and obtaining a profit or advantage. The.phrase is of army origin. A non-commissioned officer who offends against service regulations risks demotion and the loss of a stripe from his sleeve."
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