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wouldn't touch (so/sth) with a ten-foot pole. tv. would not get involved with someone or something. : Forget it. I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. ...
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In Reply to: Re: "Wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole" posted by ESC on November 19, 2001 at ... Still, they both serve as figures of speech, and so did 'tongs.' With 'tongs' (spelled 'tongues') the expression was known by 1639, when John Clarke included it in his 'Paroemiologia Anglo-Latino': 'Not to be handled with...
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Said of something or someone so unappealing that one wouldn't want to approach near. ... The expression appears to derive from the earlier American phrase 'I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole'. This is recorded in the magazine of the U.S. Masonic community - The Official Magazine of the Grand Lodge of the United...
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By doing so, the lesser-significant event is catapulted into the limelight, drowning proper attention to what was originally the more important issue.The expression comes from the saying that 'a dog is smarter than its tail', but if the tail were smarter, then the tail would 'wag the dog'.
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X use in phrases and idioms. Idioms with X. X in expressions. Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. ... Cliché not to have anything to do with someone or something. (Always negative.) No, I won't hire Fred. I wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole. I wouldn't touch that job with a ten-foot pole.
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something that you say which means that you think someone or something is so bad that you do not want to be involved with them in any way If I were you, I wouldn't touch that property with a barge pole. ... I wouldn't touch with a barge pole; I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole; I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw;
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Ambrose Bierce (under the pseudonym Dod Grile), The Fiend's Delight In conclusion, his respect for letter-writing ladies is so great that he would not touch one of them with a ten-foot pole.
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The standard phraseology is "I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole," meaning that the speaker finds "it" (whatever "it" is) so offensive that he or she would stay at least ten feet away from it and even then would not want to make any sort of contact with it.
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