To frogmarch someone means to hustle them out of a place, usually by grabbing their collar and pinning their arms behind. Originally, this verb referred to police carrying an unruly person out of a building face down with a different person grasping each limb. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Frogmarch”
I was stopped in my tracks the other day when I used the term frog march, and I was talking to a really smart person, and she had no idea what I was talking about.
You know this term.
Yeah, absolutely.
Frog march meaning to hustle somebody out of a bar or something like that? Usually by not just hustle them, but you’re holding them in a certain way.
Yeah, you’re either grabbing them by the collar or pinning their arms back.
Right.
And I was so surprised. I asked a couple other people I know who are also really smart, and they didn’t know this term.
Frog march being a transitive verb. You frog march somebody out of their office or something because they’ve misbehaved.
What I didn’t realize was that it goes back to an even older use of frogs march that originated with London police in the 19th century. And it referred to carrying a drunk or a disorderly person out of someplace by carrying him face down between four people, each of them holding a limb.
That’s right. And then tossing them back in the back of the police van.
Yeah. Then later it referred to marching somebody out on their feet but with their arms pinned back.
Yeah. How cool is that?
It’s a little different. But they’re both unwilling.
Yeah. They both didn’t want to go.
Exactly. Frog march him out of there.
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