![]() Many reporters, and a majority of South Koreans, could not make heads or tails of the commentators’ analysis. If you can’t make heads or tails of the list, simply turn off each gadget one by one (or just disable the gadget’s Wi-Fi ) to figure out what is what. Today we use the expression heads or tails, where heads is a persons head and tails refers to the opposite side, not because there is a tail on it, but. “We couldn’t make heads or tails of what we were being told,” she said. Tails refers to the opposite side, not because there is a tail on it, but because it is the. ![]() It’s a classic tale of underdog vs shoe-in, and the best of guesses are may be no more accurate than calling heads or tails it’s all up in the air. A coin has two faces(heads and tails), with a probability of 50 for each face, but what is the probability that is does not fall on any of it's faces but. Heads refers to the side of the coin with a persons head on it. Suppose we model the tournament by replacing basketball games with coin flips, except with coins that don’t land evenly heads or tails but rather are weighted to reflect each game’s actual odds. British English trends toward a singular form, can’t make head or tail of. The plural form, can’t make heads or tails of, is the American English form. The phrase may have its beginnings all the way back in Ancient Rome, in a phrase used by Cicero, ne caput nec pedes which means neither head nor feet, referring to a state of confusion. Tails refers to the opposite side, not because there is a tail on it, but because it is the opposite of heads.Ĭan’t make heads or tails of refers to something confusing, something not understandable. Heads refers to the side of the coin with a person’s head on it. As one person tosses the coin in the air, the other person calls either heads or tails. When a decision must be made with two equally viable answers, or two people disagree and must find an equitable way to choose between two answers, a coin may be flipped. And according to Merriam-Webster, the origin of the term "tails" for the reverse of a coin in English dates to 1680.Heads or tails refers to the two sides of a coin. More information on the terminology used in other languages for the obverse and reverse of a coin. So it's likely that the Greens and Romans were inspired by the designs of the Lydians. Tails up, which we abbreviate to Tails, or just T. A coin always has two faces, usually called: Heads and Tails When you toss a coin and let it land on a flat surface (like the floor or a table top), it could land in three ways: Heads up, which we abbreviate to Heads, or just H. It's worth noting that our knowledge of the Lydians being among the first cultures to produce coins comes mainly from the Greek historian, Herodotus. OK, whoever wins this coin toss has to go out and get the groceries. Heads and tails This activity is about tossing coins. But I wouldn't know where the "tail" terminology comes from in that case. The more obvious answer would be that the terminology started with the Romans and Greeks, since they used heads of states to adorn their coins with (as well as Gods, such as the head of Athena coin). This could explain where the etymology of "heads" and "tails" (as the "back" of the coin could be considered the "tail" of the animal.) The "obverse" of these coins was usually the head of the animal (or the full animal), such as the famous Lion-head coin. These coins date back to 600 BC, and were engraved with the image of a symbolic animal. Some of the earliest known coins were found in the ruins of of Lydia in modern-day Turkey. 3.)īefore that, it was done by the Romans, and was called navia aut caput ("ship or head"), as some coins had a ship on one side and the head of the emperor on the other. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) Samuel Butler used the phrase in the 1600s: “Whacum had neither cross nor pile.” (Butler: Hudibras, part ii. The cross was the major design element on one side of many coins, and the pile was the bottom part of the die used to cast the 'cross' side of the coin. Cross and pile was played in England for many centuries. go to Heads or Tails for 'em."Īs far as the coin toss goes, it is far from recent. A character in the play advises someone, "As Boys do with their Farthings. The first recorded use of "tails" to mean the reverse side of a coin occurred in a 1684 comedy, "The Atheist," by playwright Thomas Otway. For our random coin flip we use an USA gold coin with George Washington (head) on one side and Liberty Statue (tails) on the other side. The expression can't make head nor tail of it expresses this concept of opposites, and may be where heads or tails comes from. I don't think tails has anything directly to do with what is on the other side of the coin, but rather it is an expression of opposites: the head is at one end of spinal column, the tail at the other (think 'dog' nose to tail are opposites, rather than head and feet).
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