hand over fist/foot

[Wilson Gray]

An oldie, but a goodie. When people get angry and unconsciously grit
their teeth, it causes their jaw muscles to bulge.

Hence, "get the jaws" in the meaning that you've supplied; "give
someone the jaws" = "piss somebody off," especially in cases in which
the person who gets pissed can't do anything about it. It annoyed the
hell out my ex-Navy buddy to hear me say, "When I was in the War ...,"
but what was he going to do about it? Punch me out?

-Wilson

All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain



On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 9:19 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: hand over fist/foot
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 6:42 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> For a while, I continued to use "in the War" instead of "in the Army,"
>> because I had an ace, a Navy veteran, who always got the jaws behind
>> hearing me say it. He felt that I was thereby claiming to have seen
>> combat.
>>
>
> "got the jaws behind"? New to me. = 'got really annoyed by' ?
>
> m a m
>
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