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In my pocket

Posted by ESC on May 22, 2007

In Reply to: In my pocket posted by ESC on May 22, 2007

: : In football we have a phrase "he's in my pocket" which means I have the better of him, where does this come from and what did it originally refer to?

: Merriam-Webster says "pocket" can mean a small bag. If you have someone in a bag, etc., he is in your control. The expression always makes me thing of someone won over by a bribe or other financial interest.

This reference says the phrase "To be in someone's pocket" is "To be under their control; to be close to them." Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable revised by Adrian Room (HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, 1999, Sixteenth Edition). So maybe the origin is just have such an absolute hold that the person might as well be in your pocket. But I still think money has something to do with it.

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