I ran across a phrase I’d never heard before this morning: “on a hiding to nothing”. A quick Google search later, and I ran across a definition from Dave Wilton at his site, Wordorigins.org:
The phrase dates to 1905 and is apparently from horse racing.The phrase is used in situations where one is expected to win, so there is no credit or glory (and at low odds, little money) to be had, but potential disgrace if you lose. Once you get that the meaning is clear — the horse is taking a beating for no possible gain.
The “hiding” is from the sense of a beating, not concealment.
I love English. I’ve been speaking this crazy language for nearly thirty years, and I regularly discover that I don’t know even half of it.
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In England, the phrase “on a hiding to nothing” means something different from what you have discovered.
My Oxford Dictionary gives the meaning as “in a position from which there can be no successful outcome”, although it gives no clue as to the derivation.
In fact, it was said on the BBC news today that the US forces searching for WMD in Iraq are on a hiding to nothing. In other words, if they don’t find any, they will be criticised for going to war on a false premise, and if they do find them, they will be criticised for planting them in order to justify the war.
on a hiding to nothing
just came across this phrase while reading one of my favorite writers, domini…
Re: fashionable anti-americanism
im glad you asked.
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The phrase dates to 1905 and is apparently from horse…
spiffy phrase. i’ll start using it now
I’ve recently come across this phrase used in the book “Odds and Gods” by the British author Tom Holt. It is an incredibly funny book, in the style of Douglas Adams, but applied to the Pantheon of gods. Osiris is on a hiding to nothing against his godson Julian, who wants to declare Osiris insane and claim the family estate. The phrase is used frequently and has had me baffled throughout. Finally, I decided to look the damn thing up.
I’ve puzzled as to the origin of this phrase which (apart from the horseracing suggestion) is apparently meaningless. It was the title of an episode of a TV programme in the late ’70s (which could of course have been a play on words) and I wondered if it could be a corruption of ‘a siding to nowhere’ which is a reference to bits of railway track that branch off the main line but end shortly (rolling stock can be stored there out of the way, but don’t go anywhere …). Somewhere I’ve seen ‘hiding to nowhere’ given as an alternative to ‘hiding to nothing’, which would fit my hypothesis. And one shade of meaning (working hard at something that isn’t going to get you anywhere) seems to be equivalent to ‘flogging a dead horse’ which links with the racing explanation … fun, isn’t it?
Anne