Query: "I've got your number."

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:14 PM -0500 3/16/10, Gerald Cohen wrote:
>  A colleague has asked me about the origin of the slang phrase "I've got
>your number" (= to have precise, useful knowledge of someone's weaknesses;
>have someone in a critical position).
>
>I checked Jonathan Lighter's excellent HDAS and see examples going back to
>1853, but I don't see an etymology given, so I suppose this silence equates
>to "Origin unknown."
>
>I see various items on the expression in Google but am not clear about their
>reliability.  Would anyone know what the "number" originally referred to?
>
>Gerald Cohen
>

I always assumed, without any privileged knowledge, that it referred
to a phone number:  I've got your number, I know where to reach/get
to you, you can't escape...   Maybe evoking those old movies like
"Dial M for Murder", in which the bad guy has the good guy/gal's
(phone) number and can call it at will to raise the latter's fear
quotient and the audience's tension.  But that's just a guess.

LH

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