When the chips are down....
.... the situation (according to Christine Ammer's The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms) is urgent or desperate. Can you guess how/when this phrase was coined?
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Apparently this expression comes from poker (of course!). When all the bets have been made, and the chips—representing money—are physically put down, the hand is over and the players turn up their cards to see who has won. Ammer dates the phrase to the late 1800s, which is a little too vague for me.
Idiom Origins pushes it even later, to the early 20th century. (Oh dear.)
Well, for a phrase that's tossed around a lot (and is even the title to a song from the Broadway musical Hadestown, which is currently on tour):
So, folks, that's all I've got for when the chips are down.
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| The chips are down... no going back now! By Unknown author - http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-faro.html [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7864393 |
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6 comments:
French connection
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chips_Are_Down
Is Mark Stannert in the poker club?
(They all look very tense!)
Hi Liz! Thank you! I wonder if I could have a character mutter that in French. Hmmm.
Hi Camille!
If not in the frame, Mark Stannert is probably lurking just outside. ;-)
And yes, they do look very tense. Maybe because some photographer is pointing a camera at them while they are trying to focus on the game? (Or maybe they're all posing and trying to look serious.)
Good point. And it wouldn't be a discreet cellphone camera either!
Camille - that's right! And they probably used "flash powder" to light up the scene: magnesium powder with potassium sulphate and antimony chlorate (https://academic.oup.com/jvc/article/23/4/481/5054041)
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