After a peaceful loving family Easter, I’m not ready to dive back into the world today. So I’ll dust off my teacher hat and give you the history of a common phrase you hear and use.
When someone suddenly blows up in anger, and usually we don’t see it coming, we say that he “flew off the handle.” This phrase goes back to a description of a character in an 1843 English book by Thomas C. Haliburton, called The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England. It refers to how the business end of an ax, if loose, can unexpectedly fly off its handle when being swung. That’s appropriate for some people I know, because when they’ve done it I’ve felt as though an ax-head was firmly embedded between my shoulder blades.