The phrase in like Flynn describes someone who’s thoroughly successful, often with the ladies. Many suspect it’s a reference to the dashing actor Errol Flynn and his sensational trial on sex-related charges. That highly publicized trial may have popularized the expression, but it was already in use by then. It could perhaps be a case of simple rhyming, along the lines of such phrases as “What do you know, Joe?” and “out like Stout.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “In Like Flynn”
Hi, you have A Way with Words. Yeah, hey, this is Eric Odie.
Hey, Eric. How are you doing?
Doing well.
Good, good. Where are you?
Well, I’m kind of near the Puyallup, Washington area in Bonny Lake.
So here’s the question. I was told decades ago from my father, and so it must be true because my father told me this, that the phrase, in like Flynn, came from Ernest Thayer’s poem, Casey at the Bat, where in the poem, if you remember in the poem, Flynn is hugging third when Casey comes up to bat. And so the idea is that Flynn is certainly in because, hey, it’s Casey who’s at the bat.
All right. But whenever I’ve gone online to try to verify that, everywhere you look, the overwhelming number of people claim that it comes from Errol Flynn, that the phrase comes from kind of his womanizing ways, and some people reference it to the court case where he was on trial for a statutory rape. And at any rate, I still believe that it makes much more sense that it came from the poem from Casey at the Bat. And as a children’s poet myself, I would love to hear that I’m absolutely right, but I’ll take whatever information you’ve got.
It’s interesting. I’ve never heard this theory before, and I take a different tact. There’s the fact that no one has ever connected it to that poem would lead me to believe that it doesn’t come from the poem. The superficial similarity between an expression and fin there isn’t enough. It’s one single bit of evidence, and it’s not even rhymed in that way, right? In the poem.
You mean within the poem?
Yeah, it doesn’t say in like Flynn.
No, it never says, no. Thayer’s poem does not say in like Flynn.
And he’s not even in the position of being in that sure thing. When we use the expression in like Flynn today, we mean that somebody is locked into a good thing, or that it’s inevitable that this thing is going to happen to them or that they’ll be able to win the favors of a lady, which is often the way that it’s used.
When we’re doing the etymological research, working in a dictionary, I say we, meaning dictionary editors, we look for a tremendous amount of evidence in the written record that specifically and explicitly connects a source to an expression where somewhere we would have expected anyway, before 1940s or when in like Flynn became a common saying, we would expect it in the previous decades for that to have appeared since the poem is so much older.
And yet it doesn’t.
References to it, yeah.
We would expect it somebody to have said, you know, as he wrote in the famous poem, he’s in like Flynn. Nobody said anything like that.
There’s no juxtaposition of these two things side by side anywhere in the historical record until you mention it.
And there’s a lot of question about Errol Flynn, too.
Yeah, and Errol Flynn’s not a sure thing.
Maybe that’ll make you feel a little better about it.
Errol Flynn’s not a sure thing either.
When his court case came up in 1942, the expression in like Flynn already existed. We already have uses of it in the historical record, in newspapers and books.
And there’s a strong bit of evidence that it’s just simple, traditional rhyming slang. The same way it’s like, what do you know, Joe? What do you say, Ray? And all these old style ways of just kind of like using a name just because it rhymes.
And for no other reason at all, except because it rhymes.
Yeah, out like flout became another expression after in like Flynn.
Is that right? I’ve never heard that.
Yeah, it was rare.
It didn’t last.
Out like stout or out like flout.
Yeah, out like stout.
So when Errol Flynn came along, here was this ready-made expression that could be kind of repurposed to apply to this interesting scandalous and salacious case where he was accused of sexual impropriety and later acquitted.
He was well known as a ladies’ man anyway.
So to be in like Flynn and meaning to be able to, you know, she’ll say yes if you ask her, you know, that definitely comes from Errol Flynn.
But the expression existed before his court case.
So, Eric, was your dad really emphatic about that?
No, I think it was something that was taught to him in elementary school.
Interesting.
And he’s, what, he’s 75 or so right now.
Yeah.
Well, I’ll tell you one thing. Just because I’ve never heard this before doesn’t mean that I won’t come across evidence in the future.
I’m constantly trolling and trawling through the historical record looking for evidence of things.
And now that you’ve brought this to my attention, I can make sure that this is one of those things that should I come across evidence, I’m definitely going to collect it and record it and tell everyone about it.
And if you do, pop over to Facebook or Twitter and let us know.
Yeah, absolutely. All right, Eric?
All right. Well, very good.
Thank you, sir.
Yeah, appreciate you taking it.
Sure. Bye-bye.
Bye, Eric.
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