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Jimmy Hung
2021-09-13 04:09
Get (someone) by the short hairs British informal verb phrase
The verb "get" can be replaced by "have".
To have someone in a difficult situation in which you have complete power over them
I got Jay by the short hairs because I knew what he had done.
He got us by the short hairs when he found out about our little secret.
I cannot do anything against him because he gets me by the short hairs.
Under the control of or controlled by the acts of another, without the power to protect or liberate oneself.
The phrase refers to the hairs on the neck and it may have been used in the military. It was first used by Rudyard Kipling in The Drums of the Fore and Aft from 1890, regarding the British Army'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!"
The meaning of the phrase changed when L. Dorothy Slayers in her collaboration with Robert Eustace in her novel Doctors in Case from 1930 wrote:
“She’s evidently got her husband by the short hairs.”
Since then, the phrase has been used in different variants.
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