Tom, Dick and Harry

For specific usages, see Tom, Dick and Harry (disambiguation).

The phrase "Tom, Dick and Harry" is a placeholder for multiple unspecified people; "Tom, Dick or Harry" plays the same role for one unspecified person.[1][2] The phrase most commonly occurs as "every Tom, Dick and Harry", meaning everyone, and "any Tom, Dick or Harry", meaning anyone, although Brewer defines the term to specify "a set of nobodies; persons of no note".[3] The masculine names in these phrase do not in themselves imply exclusion of females, but use of either version when the context implies necessarily being female − for example, "Your mother could be any Tom, Dick or Harry" − would normally be seen as careless or ironic. The phrase may be used with or without the serial comma, as "Tom, Dick, and Harry" or "Tom, Dick and Harry". Sometimes, the name "Harry" is replaced by the name of the person being spoken to, for the sake of implying that said person is not a cut above the rest or doesn't deserve something that is being talked about (ex: "Football scholarships aren't awarded to just any Tom, Dick or Matthew", "Matthew" being the person spoken to).

Contents

Origin

The origin of the phrase is unknown although it is very old, the oldest known citation is from the 17th-century English theologian John Owen who used the words in 1657.[4][5] Owen told a governing body at Oxford University that "our critical situation and our common interests were discussed out of journals and newspapers by every Tom, Dick and Harry."[4][5] Pairs of common male names, particularly Jack and Tom, Dick and Tom, or Tom and Tib, were often used generically in Elizabethan times.[5] For example a variation of the phrase can be found in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1 (1597): "I am sworn brother to a leash of Drawers, and can call them by their names, as Tom, Dicke, and Francis."[5][6]

Why does Tom come first and Harry last? In English usage, where three words are given in a series, the shortest-sounding word normally comes first, and the longest-sounding word comes last.[7] Examples of this gradation include "tall, dark and handsome", "hook, line and sinker", "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"; and so on.

In medicine

English-speaking medical students use the phrase in memorizing the order of an artery, and a nerve, and the three tendons of the flexor retinaculum in the lower leg: the T,D,a,n, and H of Tom, Dick and Harry correspond to tibialis posterior, flexor digitorum longus, posterior tibial artery, tibial nerve, and flexor hallucis longus.[8] This mnemonic is used to remember the order of the tendons from anterior to posterior at the level of the medial malleolus just posterior to the malleolus.[9]

Similar phrases in other languages

In popular culture

For other uses, see Tom, Dick and Harry (disambiguation).

Notes and references

  1. ^ Shakespeare, William; Bevington, David (1998). Henry IV, Part 1. Oxford University Press. pp. 178. ISBN 0192834215. http://books.google.com/books?id=3BpOKfMbBowC&pg=PA178&dq=%22Tom,+Dick+and+Harry%22. 
  2. ^ Partridge, Eric (2006). The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. Taylor & Francis. pp. 1981. ISBN 041525938X. http://books.google.com/books?id=mAdUqLrKw4YC&pg=PA1981&dq=%22Tom,+Dick+and+Harry%22. 
  3. ^ Brewer, E. Cobham (1978). Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Avenel Books. p. 1235. ISBN 0517259214. 
  4. ^ a b Peter Toon, God’s Statesman, pg. 52.
  5. ^ a b c d "Tom, Dick, and Harry", the Gramaphobia Blog, February 18, 2007
  6. ^ Henry IV, Part 1, via Wikisource
  7. ^ Thomas Mann, Joachim Neugroschel (editor). Death in Venice and other tales, Penguin Classics. Page ix
  8. ^ "MedicalMnemonics". Medial malleolus: order of tendons, artery, nerve behind it. http://www.medicalmnemonics.com/cgi-bin/return_browse.cfm?discipline=Anatomy&system=Skeletal&browse=1. Retrieved 2008-01-17. 
  9. ^ Netter, Frank H. (2011) Atlas of Human Anatomy, 5th Ed. Saunder: Philadelphia.