Word watch

Where words and phrases come from is a fascinating subject, full of folklore and historical lessons (continuing phrases beginning with G)

Game is up, the - success is no longer possible

Origin - This was an ancient hunting term with a quite different meaning: 'the game (ie: quarry) is leaving its cover and the sport can begin'. Presumably, the expression changed from one about a beginning to one about an end because non-hunters assumed that game meant activity and up meant over. Today, it has come to be used to mean ' we have seen through your tricks - your deceit is exposed'.

Game not worth the candle, a - activity not worth the trouble or cost

Origin - From the translation of the French phrase le jeu n'en vaut la chandelle, referring to a gambling session in which the amount of money at stake was not worth the price of the candle needed to provide illumination for the game.

Game plan - plan of action

Origin - This expression originated in American football, used to describe a strategy for winning, worked out in advance. It dates from the 1940s. By chance it is actually recorded slightly earlier in a figurative use - for a carefully thought out strategy for achieving an objective in war or politics or business or personal affairs.

Garbage in garbage out - if you input the wrong data, the results will also be wrong.

Origin - A term from typesetting and computing known by 1964 and sometimes abbreviated to GIGO, meaning that if you put incorrect data into a computer, however much you embellish it, what comes out will be meaningless and useless. In the wider sense it conveys the simple idea that you get back what you put in, reflected in the 16th Century proverb, 'There comes nothing out of a sack but what was in it.'

Get down to brass tacks - deal with realities, hard facts or details of immediate importance

Origin - In fabric shops a strip of this metal, a yard or metre in length, is often set along the edge of the counter so that material can easily be measured. An alternative to this used to be - and sometimes still is - two brass nails set a certain distance apart. After a customer had selected a fabric, the sales assistant would suggest getting down to the brass tacks to work out the practical details of measurement and price.

There have been other explanations, the most plausible of which refers to the use of brass tacks in the final stage of upholstering furniture, but a high-street shopkeeper's phrase is more likely to have passed into general use than a specialist craftsman's.

Get it in the neck (0r Stick one's neck out) - risk criticism by speaking one's mind

Origin - To stick one's neck out, as if inviting the hangman to slip on the noose, is to take a risk.

It means to risk displeasing or upsetting others by identifying oneself with a particular point of view.