

I offered Richard the service of my Free Lances.




What in Fleet Street is called “free-lancing.”

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

flying saucer




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flying colors

To come off with flying colors is to achieve great success. It is a military metaphor for leaving the battlefield still in possession of one’s flag. The phrase dates to the 17th century. From John Locke’s 1692 A Letter Concerning Toleration:

It may...bring a Man off with flying Colours.

And from George Farquhar’s 1706-07 A Beaux Stratagem:

We came off with flying colours.

Some claim a nautical origin for this phrase, but it appears to have got its start among armies, not navies.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

five by five

Often in old war movies you’ll hear a radio operator say, “I read you five-by-five.” What does this mean?

The operator in question is ranking the voice transmission on a scale of one to five in two categories, strength and clarity. So, five-by-five is loud and clear and one-by-one would be weak and unintelligible. From Evan Hunter’s 1954 Blackboard Jungle:

“All right, testing, one-two-three-four."..."Five by five, Mr. Halloran!”

By the 1980s, it had acquired a general slang sense of okay, fine. From Rick Eilert’s 1983 For Self and Country:

“I hope everything’s all right.”
“Yeah, everything is five by five.”1



To fire is an American slang verb meaning to dismiss someone from employment, to sack someone. The underlying metaphor is not quite certain, but it is most likely that of a bullet being fired from a gun.

The word first appears in the early 1870s in a general sense meaning to dismiss, to get rid of someone. From the March 1871 issue of Overland Monthly:

The thought that I was fired by some stranger, who wasn’t a-takin’ no not a good thought to die on.

The dismissal from employment sense appears a decade or so later. From Sweet and Knox’s Texas Siftings of 1882:

If Gould fires you out, the only railroad in Texas that will employ you will be some street railroad.1

There are various claims floating about that the slang term comes from literal acts of arson. An employer would burn the desk or home of someone he wished to dismiss. This is utter nonsense. The slang term is metaphorical and was never meant to be taken literally.



During a filibuster, a senator or group of senators continue to talk, often about irrelevant topics (reading the telephone book is a phrase often used), in order to prevent a vote on a particular subject. The rules of the US Senate allow for unlimited debate. So as long as the vocal cords of the senators hold out, they can prevent legislation from moving forward. The term is technically not restricted to the US Senate, but given the peculiar rules of this body it is most often used in reference to that body.

A filibuster is so-called because the minority hijacks the debate, much like a pirate hijacks a ship and it is an affront to good order and discipline, just like the Yankee filibusters who invaded Latin America in the 1850s.

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fifth column





(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings, the





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Suord ne fir forgat he noght,
And ȝong ysaac a fagett broght.
(Sword nor fire he forgot not,
And young Isaac a faggot brought.)1

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More blod thar nas in al is face.
(More blood there than in all his face.)


And right as Aleyn, in the Pleynt of Kynde,
Devyseth Nature of aray and face,
in swich aray men myghte hire there fynde.
(As right as Alan, in the Complaint of Gender,
devised nature an order and face,
in such array might find her there.)


Arrangements by which China has lost face.


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