Isn't this kinda dirty?

[kz_blogorambling]

The Chronicle of Higher Ed had this quote today:

"Banks are dictating what they want and how they want it," said Humberto F. Gonçalves, senior vice president for finance at Simmons College, who has heard of financial institutions' charging fees as high as one percent in recent weeks for converting variable-rate bonds. "They've got you by the short hairs, and they're yanking on them."

I thought "the short hairs" were, you know, short and curlies (as they like to say). Which makes that phrase colorful, but maybe a little TOO colorful for the paper.

Am I just behind the times? Has this phrase become so common that it's no longer racy?

Comments

[bristlesage.livejournal.com]

I think it's lost a lot of its literal meaning, yeah. But it's still a little surprising.

Growing up, I was taught that your short hairs were the ones on the nape of your neck. Always made sense to me since a) those hairs usually are shorter and wispier than the others, and b) it really hurt when my mom pulled them while putting my hair up!

[whyaduck.livejournal.com]

It's all Jane Fonda's fault. She says see-you-next-Tuesday on the Today show and the entire country gets a potty mouth.

[jamespolk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my understanding of that particular phrase was the short hair at the nape of your neck, while short and curlies were pubes.

[jamespolk.livejournal.com]

The Dictionary of Slang, however, sources the phrase to the 1888 and says it refers to the pubes. So what do I know.

Odd

[js-africanus.livejournal.com]

It's odd that the 1888 source is neither quoted nor referenced, at not that I can discern. I checked the OED and there's an 1888 Kipling reference, which matches what I found on the Phrase Finder, the quote being this: "[Regarding the British military's occupation of India,] They'll shout and carry on like this for five minutes. Then they'll rush in, and then we've got 'em by the short hairs!" That this was not pubic hair is derived from this other use of the term from the same book: "Up my back, an' in my boots, an' in the short hair av the neck - that's where I kape my eyes whim I'm on duty an' the reg'lar wans are fixed."

The OED does indicate that to have one by the short hairs is a later variant of having someone "where the hair is short," and gives two references, one from 1872, and one from Twain in 1880. Neither of those provide context about what sort of hair is being gotten.

According to the Phrase Finder reference, it wasn't until WWII that short hairs came to be associated w/ the short & curlies. =D

[blanx73.livejournal.com]

The rest of the quote got a little weird:

"When the loan manager has you bent over the desk, pants around your ankles, and is treating you like Ned Beatty in Deliverance, you know you've been serviced by WaMu."

Jockey

[js-africanus.livejournal.com]

"There's a reason your bank manager has a riding crop, and it ain't because he's a jockey!"

[theoryofgravity.livejournal.com]

GAHAHAHA! The person quoted is two offices down from me right now (and is indeed prone to occasionally, um, colorful comments). Hilarious.

Hero

[js-africanus.livejournal.com]

Go tell him that he's my hero.

[scout1222.livejournal.com]

Wow - I'd never use that in a setting where I knew it would get written down and published.

[crankyasanoldma.livejournal.com]

It's one thing to say it--some people are pretty casual. But for the paper to print it? That strikes me as very odd.