phrases, sayings, idioms and expressions at

Down to the short strokes

Posted by Cliff Bowman on October 10, 2008 at 20:46

In Reply to: Down to the short strokes posted by Brian from Shawnee on October 10, 2008 at 17:51:

: : : : : CNN anchor John Roberts was talking about the rapidly approaching U.S. presidential election on Nov. 4. It's getting down to the short strokes, he said. Does that mean what I think it means?

: : : : Yes (I hope), it refers to putting in golf.

: : : Oh. Now I'm embarrassed.

: : Don't be, ESC. I too would have thought it referred to putting in something else. ~rb

: We may never know if the golf reference was influenced by the other pasttime.

: A couple of decades ago I was watching a network news broadcast when a female reporter doing what must have been a live report mentioned that someone had "shot their wad" in the political sense but I was shocked that she used that term and I wondered if she knew what it meant. I just checked urbandictionary.com and they say it's becoming more mainstream and is even used in boardroom discussions, but I don't think there is a "wad" in golf so I wonder how it's explained to people who are unfamliar with it.

William Safire seems to agree with ESC's intuition. (The reference is on the second page.) As Safire says, "overt usage purifies, and common usage cleanses."

--Cliff

© 1997 – 2024 Phrases.org.uk. All rights reserved.