Hi all. New member - just discovered this site. It's nice to find people who share my love of words.

As a born and bred Englishman, I've used "run/goes like the clappers" for as long as I can remember (and that's long enough, thanks). I can't do better than the suggestion that the clappers referred to are bell clappers, although there are plenty of instances of bell clappers that are quite slow (the baritone in a set of church bells isn't exactly fast).

A couple of other euphemisms for "fast" that spring to mind are:

"like a cat with its tail on fire"

and one that's always puzzled me

"like s**t off a shovel".

Can anyone explain that one? My experience (of the bovine and equine form) is that it takes quite an effort to get it off the shovel.

Do, or do not. There is no "try".