Chrysti the Wordsmith > Radio Scripts > Back to the Old Drawing Board

The common expression look before you leap was inspired by one of the fables of Aesop. Shakespeare was the first to record the phrase at one fell swoop, and from the old testament comes the idiom handwriting on the wall.

These are just three examples of the hundreds of English cliches which have come to us from literature, fable, and history. But one of our most beloved expressions comes from a wartime cartoon caption published in a 1941 New Yorker Magazine.

The cartoon, submitted by an artist named Peter Arno, shows a crashed plane with its nose buried in the ground. The pilot is seen parachuting to safety in the background, while military personnel and ambulances race to the crash site. In the center of the scene, an aircraft designer, with rolled-up blueprints under his arm, strides away from the demolished plane, saying, "Well, back to the old drawing board."

This caption became a permanent American cliche in very short order. We all use it when we are convinced that a scheme has gone awry and needs redesigning. We can find it quoted almost daily in the print media, like this example from the NY Times in 1987: "The story of the W-4 is not over yet. The IRS is back at the drawing board...thinking about...a redesign of the employee tax withholding form."

Radio Script > Back to the Old Drawing Board