On The Cuff

Recently an Idiomation subscriber mentioned how different on the cuff and off the cuff were from each other. What they knew of the idiom was that on the cuff meant free of charge or on credit. A quick check with established and well-known dictionaries confirmed such an expression exists and that it means just that (and is quite different from something that is off the cuff).

In the Norman Phillips (November 1921 – 28 June 2021) novel Throw A Nickel On The Grass published in 2012 and based on the true story of the author who became a decorated fighter pilot and rose to the rank of colonel, the idiom is used when speaking of the main character’s younger years. This excerpt uses the idiom and clearly demonstrates what it means.

Rick had seen a white jacket in Nate Fox’s window display, and now he could try one on and tell Nate to hold it for him. It needed a minor alteration that Nat wouldn’t do unless Rick made a five-dollar down payment. After wheedling Grandma, she advanced the five dollars, and Rick got the jacket in time for the prom. The white shoes were easy. Breller’s let him have the shoes on the cuff. He could pay for them later when he had the money.

French novelist, polemicist and physician, Louis-Ferdinand Céline whose real name was Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961) included it in his book Death on the Installment Plan which was a companion volume to his earlier novel, Journey to the End of the Night. Originally published in the mid-1930s (and republished in the 1970s), these two novels told the story of the author’s childhood growing up in the slums of Paris (France), and serving in WWI. It is said that Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s fiction was the forerunner of what became known as black humor.

The first ones to make a stink were the grocers on the rue Berce … They refused to give us any more food on the cuff … They came around with their bills … We heard them coming up … We didn’t answer …

As mentioned, the idiom was still very much in use at the time these novels were reprinted in the 1970s. In April of 1976, the Honorable Louis Arthur “Skip” Bafalis (28 September 1929 – ), a representative in Congress from the State of Florida, submitted this as his statement regarding food stamps and the cost to taxpayers with regards to the Peanut Act of 1976 at hearings before the Committee on Agriculture. In part, this is what he had to say on the matter.

We may see the day when for every American working hard and losing his shirt to the taxman, another American is living on the cuff.

When that day comes, and it could come, you will see a revolt — a middle American revolution. The working man is going to stop working. After all, what is he gaining for himself by working hard, if the taxman takes it all.

And when middle America quits working and paying taxes, a lot of those now living high on the cuff are going to get a rude awakening. Some may starve for they’ve forgotten how to work.

I know this sounds far-fetched. I hope it is. But I am afraid it could happen.

This indicates that the English version of Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s book was not a bad translation from the French version. The idiom was known to those who spoke English.

A decade earlier, the Business Review of April 1960 saw one of its articles titled, “$52 Billion On The Cuff: How Burdensome is Consumer Credit?” included in the Consumer Credit Labeling Bill of 1960. The article began by stating that slightly less than $52 billion dollars of outstanding consumer credit was outstanding, not including mortgages, and there was concern that, with the fast rise in consumer credit since the end of WWII in 1945, the situation could negatively impact the housing economy and mortgage markets not dissimilar to what happened in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s.

In 1942, the expression was used in the discussion of the purchase of old vessels and the sale of new vessels from the Waterman Steamship Corporation under section 509 of the Merchant Marine Act, and dating back to 8 June 1940. The Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries was led by the Chairman Schuyler Otis Bland (4 May 1872 – 16 February 1950) of Virginia, and included, among others, Herbert Covington Bonner (16 May 1891 – 7 November 1965) of North Carolina, James Hardin Peterson (11 February 1894 – 28 March 1978) of Florida, investigator for the Washington D.C. office of General Accounting Harry S. Barger (26 September 1882 – 1954), General Counsel James Vincent Hayes (1900 – 13 May 1985), The debate includes this exchange of words.

THE CHAIRMAN: I think wherever it is used it ought to be borne in mind that it has an invidious meaning whenever used in any public document.

MR. BONNER: What does on the cuff mean?

THE CHAIRMAN: Yes; what does on the cuff mean?

MR. BARGER: These are expressions used in the memorandum.

MR. BONNER: Does it mean a private understanding between people?

MR. BARGER: It could, Mr. Congressman. I would rather not interpret it.

MR. PETERSON: Let us read that little portion again.

MR. HAYES: What Mr. Peterson desired to have read was the on the cuff reference back of that.

MR. BARGER: The first clause is “Neither implied nor on the cuff understandings with respect to the purchase of old vessels from Water –“

MR. HAYES: What is the beginning of that sentence?

MR. BARGER: The whole sentence?

MR. HAYES: Yes.

MR. BARGER: It begins with the word “Neither.”

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 1: The only vessel of the C3-S-DX1 design, SS Schuyler Otis Bland was the final vessel ordered by the U.S. Maritime Commission, and the first vessel launched by the newly-created Maritime Administration. The vessel’s name honored the late U.S. Representative Schuyler Otis Bland of Virginia, sponsor of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936. During construction, however, the vessel was surpassed by the C4-S-1A “Mariner” design and Schuyler Otis Bland was the only vessel built. The ship was ready for service in July 1951 and chartered to American President Lines for which it completed two globe-encircling journeys while engaging in commercial trade. Transferred to the U.S. Navy on August 4, 1961, the ship provided logistical support during the Vietnam War, until struck from the Naval Vessel Register on August 15, 1979. (Source: US Department of Transportation, Maritime Administration)

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 2: Herbert Covington Bonner rose to the position of chairman of the House Marine and Fisheries Committee and was dubbed the father of the first nuclear-powered merchant ship, the Savannah. He was well known for backing the social programs of the Roosevelt and Kennedy administrations, and was an original member of the House on UnAmerican Activities Committee.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 3: James Hardin Peterson helped to draft the G.I. Bill of Rights, and was instrumental in making the Florida Everglades into a national park. He and Lawton Mainor Chiles (3 April 1930 – 12 December 1998) worked as law partners until the late 1960s (Chiles went on to be a Senator from 1971 through 1989 and then the governor of Florida from 1991 through to 1998), after which time, he practiced on his own.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 4: James Vincent Hayes was an anti-trust lawyer who graduated from Fordham Law School and went into practice in 1926. He became the assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York before he was appointed special assistant to the United States Attorney General in 1938.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 5: In 1944, Harry S. Barger’s boss was John Joseph Sirica (19 March 1904 – 14 August 1992) who is best remember for being the Federal district judge at the trial of the Watergate burglars in the 1970s. Judge Sirica was nicknamed “Maximum John” because he was known for handing out tough sentences.

At this point, things get obscured. While it’s true that on the cuff referred to placing something on credit or getting something for free and was reportedly a popular slang expression in the 1920s and 1930s, especially among flappers, this doesn’t mean it is the same thing as what was meant at the end of the 19th century in the U.S., where the practice of penciling debts in shops and bars on celluloid cuffs was very real. Just because something appears to have a connection does not mean the connection can be proven.

In 1942, Looney Tunes put out a cartoon titled, Eatin’ On The Cuff where the moth eats his fill at everyone else’s expense (which is definitely in keeping with the meaning of the idiom). For your enjoyment and courtesy of YouTube, here’s that cartoon!

In Volume 133 of Bankers Magazine published in 1936, the subject of using credit to pay for holidays was addressed. The idiom found its way into the article thusly:

But like all sports and all vacations … it takes money. A skimpy vacation, one you ‘put on the cuff‘ is like sailing with a dragging anchor. No matter how much fun, there is still a reckoning. Let’s be smart and do it all beforehand.

In the August 1930 edition of Boys’ Life, there was a story about newspapermen and how one the Chicago Herald’s ace cameraman, Connie Layor, had been fired in front of all his colleagues despite the fact he had an exclusive shot at breaking a story about a man named Darucci who was on trial in Judge Cardigan’s court along with three other men who had been arrested with him and charged with various crimes. Bay McCue was a recent addition to the staff reporters, and had met up with Connie Layor at the court house. The short story by Alvin E. Rose and illustrated by Frank Spradling (1885 – 18 August 1972) was titled, The Man in the Door.

“You can’t tell. It might have helped a little, enough maybe have got us a lay-off instead of a permanent vacation without pay,” McCue moaned disconsolately.

“You don’t know the ‘old man,'” Layor growled. “Be quiet! I don’t feel socially inclined.”

“But I’m broke, Connie,” said McCue, “and, come to think of it, hungry. You couldn’t put me on the cuff for a few bucks, could you?”

Layor reached mechanically into his pocket and pulled out a ten-dollar bill.

“Thanks, Santa, “McCue brightened; “haven’t got a job in the other pocket, have you?”

Although Idiomation was unable to find an earlier published version of this idiom, clearly in 1930 it was an expression understood by young readers of Boys’ Life and, as claimed by numerous dictionaries, it appears to be an expression from the 1920s. It also explains why the Senators (who were middle aged men at the time) struggled with the idiom’s meaning in 1942, and why Bankers Magazine used the idiom in quotation marks in 1936.

Baloney

Bologna is a large city in Northern Italy. Bologna (pronounced baloney) is also a processed meat that is a combination of ground pork, beef, chicken, and turkey. So where does baloney — as in nonsense, rubbish, or foolishness — come from and is it somehow related to the city or the processed meat?

The Herald newspaper of Everett (WA) published a story on 28 May 2009 about the Twitter account held by cwalken that was suspended due to strange activity. Some believed the account was that of American actor Christopher Walken but it wasn’t. The photo that accompanied the account name was that of Christopher Walken, but the Twitter account wasn’t that of the actor. The article was titled, “That Famous Twitter Feed Could Be Baloney.”

As a reminder, Twitter verification was introduced in June 2009 and became Twitter’s way to distinguish real celebrity accounts from unverified celebrity accounts. Twitter closed down Twitter verification requests in 2017 but after a four-year absence, as of May of 2021, Twitter has reinstated it.

University of California Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson (18 June 1940 – 2 November 2019) wrote “Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds” which was published in 1997. The title to Chapter Three was “Tuning Up Your Baloney Detector.” This chapter spoke about the need, even in science, to suspect baloney in claims that appear to be easily debunked. He stated that Carl Sagan’s own baloney detecting kit was instrumental in directing the scientist to quickly identify con artists and conspiracy theorists who purported to be all about the science.

What we need to protect ourselves from such false beliefs, Sagan writes in his book, “The Demon-Haunted World” is a well-equipped “baloney detector kit” A baloney detector is simply a good grasp of logical reasoning and investigative procedure.

In 1979, the United States Department of Agriculture published “What’s to Eat? and Other Questions Kids Ask About Food.” According to the Foreword, it was written mostly because 1979 was designated as the International Year of the Child by the United Nations, and it was felt that publishing a kid friendly book would be the thing to do that year.

Among the contents was an article titled, “Truth or Baloney About Oranges.” There were two sets of questions — one about growing oranges and the other about processing oranges — comprising of 5 statements each to which readers were to check one of two boxes: Truth or Baloney. The quiz was followed by a diagram showing the correct answers.

In “The Supplemental Appropriation Bill, 1958” published by the United States Congress, House Committee on Appropriations, the matter of the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Tennessee River component of the Ohio River was a hot matter of discussion. The Tennessee River system at the time contributed to the floods on the Ohio River. Money had been borrowed by the TVA, and was being repaid to the Treasury Department. Senator Joseph Landon Evins (24 October 1920 – 31 March 1984) of Tennessee claimed the total repayments up until 1958 had far exceeded the 40-year statutory annual requirements, but some senators didn’t believe that was an accurate representation of the situation.

MR. JENSEN: You can cut it any way you want to, but it is still baloney, Mr. Evins. It is still baloney to me.

MR. EVINS: It happens to be a fact — a true fact. I am sure the gentleman would consider anything TVA as baloney, but what I have given him are the true facts of the situation. TVA has paid back into the Treasury more than would be required by interest payments.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 1: Joseph Landon Evins was named a staff attorney for the Federal Trade Commission in 1935 and rose to the position of the Federal Trade Commission Assistant Secretary in 1938. He held that position until the U.S. entered WWII where he was commissioned in the United States Army Judge Advocate General Corps where he served until 1946, at which time he returned to private practice. He was a Senator from 1953 through to 1977.

INTERESTING SIDE SIDE NOTE 1: Senator Evins was preceded by Senator Albert Gore Sr, the father of Senator Al Gore Jr who went on to become Vice-President of the United States of America under President Bill Clinton.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 2: Benton Franklin Jensen (16 December 1892 – 5 February 1970) was the Senator from Iowa served thirteen consecutive terms as the U.S. Representative from Iowa. Before being elected to the House of Representatives, he managed a lumber company for twenty years. Prior to that he was a second lieutenant in WWI, and before that he was a yardman and an assistant auditor at a lumber company.

INTERESTING SIDE SIDE NOTE 2: He was shot in the back near his right shoulder on 1 March 1954 in Washington DC when four Puerto Rican nationalists — Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andres Figueroa Cordero, and Irvin Flores Rodriguez — promoting the cause of Puerto Rico’s independence from the US fired 30 rounds from semi-automatic pistols onto the legislative floor from the visitors’ balcony above.

It seems that baloney was a favored word if one goes by government documents. It was repeated several times in the “National Labor Relations Act: Hearings Before the Special Committee” in 1940 where a clear definition is provided by attorney Edmund M. Toland. On Saturday, 27 April 1940 Edmund M. Toland, general counsel to the Congressional Committee investigating the National Labor Relations Board and Herbert Fuchs (20 September 1905 – 1988), attorney for the National Labor Relations Board sprinkled their comments liberally with the word.

MR. TOLAND: Notwithstanding the fact that the charge against this company was a violation of section 8 (2), that it had sponsored, dominated, or instigated, or all of the violations of section 8 (2) with respect to this union, and this witness, being called by the respondent, after being cross-examined by the Board, then the attorney for the independent union questions him, and asks him whether or not the company had ever interfered with, dominated, or sponsored the organization so are as he knew, and his answer was “none whatever” and you took that testimony as to be immaterial to the issues in this case, and therefore concluded that the testimony of this witness, under oath, was baloney!

MR. FUCHS: Oh, I don’t think I intended to characterize it as untrue. You might get a lot of people to testify that they hadn’t seen one person kill another.

The use of the word baloney was used a number of times by both Edmund M. Toland and Herbert Fuchs.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 3: Herbert Oscar Fuchs was a former American Communist who joined the National Labor Relations Board in 1937. In November 1948 he left the National Labor Relations Board over the increased attention being paid to the Alger Hiss (11 November 1904 – 14 November 1996) and Whittaker Chambers (1 April 1901 – 9 July 1961) case.

INTERESTING SIDE SIDE NOTE 3: Whittaker Chambers was a senior editor at Time magazine and in August 1948, he testified under subpoena before the House of UnAmerican Activities Committee that Alger Hiss, who had worked as an attorney for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration as well as the Nye Committee before moving to the Department of State in 1936, was a spy for the Soviet Union in the 1930s.

Back in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a plan to go off the gold standard. The Depression wasn’t letting up and inflation was only making matters worse. The passage of the Gold Reserve Act allowed the Federal Reserve to increase the amount of money in circulation to the level the economy needed, but not before New York Governor Alfred Emmanuel Smith (30 December 1873 – 04 October 1944), took to the newspapers with an open letter to the New York State Chamber of Commerce. In his letter he wrote:

I am for gold dollars as against baloney dollars. I am for experience as against experiment.

The government was concerned citizens would use the term baloney dollars instead of the high-sounding term compensated dollars. Senator George Norris of Nebraska tried to offset the damage by stating to the media, “Even baloney is pretty good food for a starving individual.”

During the 1936 presidential, Governor Smith backed Roosevelt’s opponent with the memorable refrain, “No matter how thin you slice it, it’s still baloney.”

But was the governor the first to talk about baloney that way? Not at all.

Idiomation found a joke of sorts in Volume 99, Issue 2275 of The Judge published on 6 June 1926.

HE: I love your eyes with their lustrous rays focused lovingly into mine.

SHE: Baloney; those are just words, nothing more.

HE (very much put out): What did you expect them to be? Sandwiches?

It was attributed to a publication recognized as the Texas Ranger.

Throughout the 1920s, newspaper comic strips American engineer, inventor, author, sculptor and cartoonist, Reuben Garrett Lucius “Rube” Goldberg (4 July 1883 – 7 December 1970) featured wonderfully complicated mechanical contraptions. They also often included the word baloney to mean nonsense as in “that’s the baloney” or “it’s a lot of baloney” or just plain old “baloney” all on its own.

The word was found used with ease in this published letter in the Vaudeville newspaper dated 30 June 1922.

Idiomation was unable to find any earlier published versions of baloney meaning nonsense, rubbish, or foolishness. It is therefore pegged at the beginning of the flapper era even though baloney as a prepared meat sausage was available long before then.

Off The Hook

Imagine this scenario: You are in a room when someone says or does something wrong, unlawful, awkward, or unpleasant. No one calls that person out on what has been said or done. Everyone has let that person off the hook. Yes, when someone is let off the hook, they are free of blame or trouble that might have otherwise come from their actions.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 1: In rap culture, off the hook means something that is exciting, out of control, or that has been extremely well executed, and is usually in reference to a performance or party. Most people, however, do not use this idiom in that sense.

For example, on 16 April 2019, the Hartford Courant newspaper reported on Hartford’s $573 Million dollar city budget which included funding a tree planting program, a rodent control program, increased school funding, more police officers, and more. The newspaper reported the city was both off and on the hook.

Hartford is off the hook in terms of paying back money the city borrowed for infrastructure projects and other reasons because of a deal struck two years ago where the state agreed to pay off the city’s $550 million in general obligation debt.

The city is on the hook for payments related to the construction of Dunkin’ Donuts Park, which cost nearly $72 million.

All kinds of people from the very poor to the very powerful have been let off the hook over the years. In Volume 1 of “The Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Reaffirmation Act of 1987: Committee on the Budget” it was reported that when Amendment No. 631 was being discussed that Senator Lawton Mainor Chiles Jr. (April 3, 1930 – December 12, 1998) used the expression his comments.

Mr. President, I just want to say in the same vein that my distinguished colleague from North Dakota has asked about the $150 billion. I think that we should look at why the administration would support the Domenici version. I think it is because it tends to let them off the hook on the deficit.

On 31 July 1987 in “The Increase in Statutory Limit on the Public Debt – G-R-H” Mr. Johnston began with commenting on the amendment proposed by Mr. Gramm et al and what he felt the amendment was intended to do.

What I find is that this amendment really takes the White House off the hook. It is the take-the-White-House-off–the–hook amendment, or you might call it the sweep-it-under-the-run amendment, or you might call it pin the tail on the Democrats.

Later on, Senator Ernest Frederick “Fritz” Hollings (1 January 1922 – 6 April 2019) from South Carolina was reported as saying to the Presiding Officer, Mr. Breaux.

Arriving here on the floor, I listened to the Senator from Louisiana saying we are letting the President off the hook.

I am astounded. Of course, I’ve been trying to get him on the hook. If it were possible, I would have long since done it.

I thought we found a way last June when we had the House-Senate conference on the budget. The distinguished Senator Louisiana agreed to the conference report. We had to voice vote it late that evening. The Senator from Ohio, Senator Glenn, and I, paired on the floor there around midnight, objecting because the assumptions, the economic projections were all kiltered in favor of letting the President and the Congress off the hook.

Truth be told, the senators made quite a bit of use of the idiom which, of course, is how politics happens it would seem.

The 5 May 1947 edition of Life magazine published an article titled, “The Racing Racket” written by well-known and respected New York newsman Earl Brown (1903 – 1980). The focus of the article was on how the only winners when betting on horse races were the track-owners, crooked horsemen, and grafting bookies. It even stated that political machines and police officers protected bookies from the law, and track officials looked the other way when the public was robbed on fixed races. They weren’t pointing fingers only at New York, but Chicago and Kansas City as well as other locations around the U.S.

Occasionally all of a bookmaker’s customers, acting on mass instinct, will bet on the same horse in a race. Or some wealthy customer, feeling a strong hunch, will place a bet of gigantic size. Or a crooked horse-owner or jockey will overload the book with bets on a “Sure thing.” Whenever this happens, the bookmaker stands to be wiped out at one blow if a certain horse wins. Some way or other he has to get off the hook by “betting off” some of the money he holds.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 2: Virginia native Earl Brown became a political activist, and was known for his battles with legendary Congressman Adam Clayton Powell. Before entering politics, he was the managing editor of the New York Amsterdam News, a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, and a Life magazine editor.

“The Trial of Mary Dugan” was made into a movie in 1929, but before that it was a successful Broadway play about a Broadway showgirl charged with murder in the knifing death of her wealthy lover. Her brother Jimmy is a newly licensed attorney who defends her. The Time magazine review of 20 February 1925 implies the idiom has related to fishing.

The Trial of Mary Dugan —A blooming blonde from the Follies wriggles OFF THE HOOK of murder in the first degree.

While it became more and more difficult to find published examples of the idiom, it was found in a number of newspapers in August of 1909 in article about an unnamed London music hall belle who had successfully “landed” a mature wealthy nobleman and who, at about the same time, had sued a music hall manager for non-payment of wages. She won her case against the music hall manager, and to add insult to injury (or so she hoped), she sent a nice selection of congratulatory telegrams to the music hall manager.

Some of the comments were “Good for you, old girl” and “Congratulations on your splendid haul!” One telegram event stated: “Don’t let him off the hook.”

As an added note, the music hall manager left it up to patrons of his establishment to determine if the telegrams regarding the engagement kerfuffle was about her professional or matrimonial engagement. Unfortunately for him, the article advised readers there was another action for damages against the manager pending.

Idiomation found a great many articles in newspapers from the 1890s about ships and whales being found off the Hook, meaning Sandy Hook in New York state.

Idiomation also found that off the hook should never be confused with off the reel which means something completely different but which many also assume is an idiom connected to fishing. Neither of these idioms are.

According to the “Dictionary of Idiomatic English Phrases” compiled by Professor of English Literature in the Imperial University of Japan and Scottish author, James Main Dixon, M.A. F.R.S.E. (1856 – 27 September 1933) and published in 1891, to be off the hook meant to be in disorder or flurried.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 3: James Main Dixon was the secretary of the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo (Japan) from 1879 to 1886, and a professor of English at the Imperial University of Japan from 1886 through to 1892.

He then moved on to become a professor of English literature at Washington University in St. Louis (MO) from 1892 to 1901, and in 1902, he was made Chairman of the Library and Museum Committee of the Burns Cottage Association for the St. Louis World Fair that year. From 1905 through to 1911, he was a professor of English literature at the University of Southern California. He also became the editor of West Coast Magazine in 1908.

INTERESTING SIDE SIDE NOTE 1: His sister, Mary, married Scottish physicist and mathematician Cargill Gilston Knott (30 June 1856 – 26 October 1922) who became a Fellow of the Royal Society, Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and President of the Scottish Meteorological Society.

INTERESTING SIDE SIDE NOTE 2: Knott’s Equations in geophysics are named after Cargill Gilston Knott and describe the partition of energy between reflected and refracted seismic waves.

Being on one’s own hook meant to be independent, and to hook it meant to run away.

Somewhere between 1891 and 1909 off the hook took on a new meaning. However, by 1909 it did mean what we understand the idiom to mean in 2022. Idiomation therefore pegs the idiom to the turn of the century — around 1900 — for the meaning of the idiom to have changed and for the change to be accepted by society in general.