Chrysti the Wordsmith > Radio Scripts

Last time we examined some popular phrases inspired by hair: bad hair day, to get in someone's hair, to let your hair down. The "hairy" metaphors go on.

It's been said for decades that swallowing strong liquor or coffee will put hair on your chest, in other words, make you manlier. One early use of this phrase occurred in a 1931 film called Painted Desert where a character holds out a bottle and says, "Take a swig of this. It'll put hair on your chest."

People who split hairs quibble over insignificant details. The analogy between painstakingly dividing a single hair and formulating an over-refined argument was known in Shakespeare's time. In his play Henry IV, Shakespeare writes, "I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair," meaning, "I'll argue over a tiny portion."

The slang adjective hairy has at least two undertones. Early in the 20th century, hairy was a synonym for old or passe. A hairy joke was old enough to have grown tangles of hair. But in the 1950s, the word was used to mean frightening or difficult, like a turbulent airplane flight or a steep ski run. This sense of hairy could be a version of the expression hair-raising; describing a circumstance so frightening it makes the hair stand on end.

Radio Script > Hair Expressions II