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Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 1
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 1 |
I am currently writing a local history book for our fourth graders and have employed the expression "smack-dab in the middle" in the text.
I can find the definition...but not the origin of this phrase. Does anyone know the origin?
My dictionary simply says "slang for directly or squarely".
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
Welcome aBoard, angelnanc, especially with such an iteresting question.
Over here in the UK, we say "slap-bang" in the middle - meaning precisely the same as the definition that you give.
I have no idea of its derivation, but personally associate it with the air raids of the Second World War, when bombs were said to drop, "slap-bang" in the middle of a factory, or housing estate or whatever. If this is where it started, the derivation is fairly clear, I think.
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
Well Rhuby, I would have said the same as you, but looking at the Cambridge and the OED, *they say that the expression slap-bang is indicative of excessive and reckless speed rather than exact positioning whereas smack-dab is given in the Cambridge as ‘straight or directly’. No derivation is given for either term but the first usage of slap-bang recorded in the OED is given as 1833. There is also reference, dated as 1785, to a slap-bang shop. A squalid eating-place where you were required to put down your money on the counter at time of placing the order. I wonder if they sold the first Big-Macs  .
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
I would have thought that a slap-bang shop was somewhere where you might find a Conservative cabinet minister after hours ...
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
oh, my 
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
I would have thought that a slap-bang shop was somewhere where you might find a Conservative cabinet minister after hours ...
And I thought they called 'em Clubs. Or maybe that's only at St James'...
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
You might get an Edwina Curry there perhaps?
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
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