The idiom dead on, meaning “precisely,” might sound morbid, but it makes sense. It’s a reference to the fact that death is certain and absolute. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Dead On”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Stephen Ton calling from Irving, Texas.
Hi, Stephen. How are you doing?
Hi, Stephen.
Well, I was reading a novel recently and came across the phrase dead on.
And it just got me to thinking is how did we start using sort of death to describe something that means precisely, I guess, is what I kind of think overall the meaning is.
Like dead on, dead center, dead right, dead wrong, you know, those kinds of phrases.
But it sounds a little morbid, doesn’t it?
But I’m not sure where it came from.
Well, it does.
But your hunch is correct.
It has to do with the notion of death being utter or absolute or absolutely certain.
So you get things like dead tired, dead bold, dead certain.
Dead simple.
Yeah.
So it’s really sort of finality is what you’re talking about there.
Yeah, it’s not directly related to death, though.
It doesn’t necessarily have to do with shuffling off this mortal coil or anything like that, but it’s the finality of it.
When I’ve lost someone to death, I always think about Get Smart.
Do you remember the beginning of Get Smart?
That old TV show where the guy walks?
Yeah, I remember the show, but what part?
Yeah, I’m thinking about the guy walking down the hall with all the doors closing.
Yes, exactly, and those doors just slam, and it’s just, it’s very dead.
It’s very certain.
It’s very absolute.
No going back.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, you can’t say, one more thing I wanted to ask.
That answers my question.
It just kind of hit me as a curiosity as I was reading, and I started thinking about it, and I was like, okay.
All right.
Thanks for calling.
Thanks, Stephen.
All right.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
You know, one that we didn’t talk about is dead reckoning.
What about it?
Well, some people say that it comes from deduced reckoning.
They’re wrong.
They’re wrong.
Utterly, completely wrong.
Yes.
They’re dead wrong.
Why?
And it’s funny because you have all these nautical books that claim that it comes from deduced reckoning.
And they’re absolutely, provably, utterly wrong.
It’s because dead reckoning appears long before deduced reckoning.
Right.
Exactly.
So we have an origin problem.
You can’t have a phrase come from another phrase if the child phrase existed before the parent phrase.
It just can’t happen.
That’s right.
Chicken and egg.
Chicken and egg.
Chicken and egg.
And also, Dead Ringer, by the way, has nothing to do with people buried with bells in case they were buried alive.
True.
Yes.
Same idea, right?
I know we’re going to get calls and emails about this.
I know you’re going to send us Wikipedia articles.
Don’t bother.
What words on your mind?
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