| 词汇 | gum up the works |
| 词源 | gum up the works. The expression gum up the works possibly derives from our national gum-chewing habit. The phrase be- came popular at the turn of the century and may refer to youngsters who went into the woods on gumming expeditions and got covered hair to foot with tree resin, which their parents had to work for hours to remove. But clogged machines in fac- tories were referred to as gummed up as early as 1889, in refer- ence to gummy substances such as inspissated oil clogging or stiffening them. It seems more likely that our expression for throwing a project into confusion derives from clogged ma- chines (or works) than from youngsters daubed with gum. |
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