Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: When push comes to shove

 Now here's a phrase for the ages: When push comes to shove. I can so easily imagine/hear my Silver Rush protagonist Inez Stannert thinking/saying this.

But... could she/would she, in the 1880s? 

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The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer defines this phrase as meaning "when matters must be confronted, when a crucial point is reached." (Goodness knows Inez has many such moments.)

This is what that dictionary has to say about the origin of when (or if) push comes to shove:

This term comes from rugby, where, after an infraction of rules, forwards from each team face off and push against one another until one player can kick the ball to a teammate and resume the game. Its figurative use dates from the 1950s.

1950s?? Uh-oh. Let's check some other references, because 1950s sounds way too recent.

American Slang 2nd Edition by Robert L. Chapman defines the phrase a little differently—a touchy situation becomes actively hostile; a quarrel becomes a fight—and places its use by 1958. (Yikes!) Ah, but The Grammarphobia blog comes to my rescue with a post that points to its use in the 19th century:

The expression “when (or if) push comes to shove” originated in 19th-century African-American usage, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The OED labels it colloquial—more likely to be found in speech than in formal writing—and says it means “when action must back up words” or “if or when one must commit oneself to an action or decision.” 

People generally talk about a problem before finally doing something about it. So think of talking as the “push” and acting as the “shove.”

The expression wasn’t recorded until the 1890s, according to OED citations, but no doubt it was used conversationally for years before it ever showed up in print.

Oxford gives a hint of the reasoning behind the saying in this 1873 citation from Thomas De Witt Talmage, writing in the United Methodist Free Churches’ Magazine: “The proposed improvement is about to fail, when Push comes up behind it and gives it a shove, and Pull goes in front and lays into the traces; and, lo! the enterprise advances, the goal is reached!”

Ooooh, I think I'll go with the OED as the final say in this, and trust that perhaps at some point my fictional characters would have bandied that phrase amongst themselves in the 1880s. Because, yes, the phrase shows up in my eight books. I'm not going to tell you where, though. I'll leave that as an exercise for you, dear reader. (If you figure out where this phrase appears in my Silver Rush series, feel free to contact me... I might have a "little something special" for you when you do!)

When an argument devolves to "push comes to shove," don't push it!
A literary argument on the second tier, from 'Theater sketches,' published in Le Charivari, February 27, 1864
Artist: Honoré Daumier (French, Marseilles 1808–1879 Valmondois)