I heard someone say, "He'll clean his clock," meaning 'dominate; overpower; win utterly".

Where does that phrase come from? What the heck does it have to do with clocks?

lkThe earliest cite in Hist Dict of American Slang goes back to Cockrell Barren Beaches, referring to a WWII incident.

Clock, according to HDAS, is the face or head (1908). To clock someone was to hit in the face (1986). Usually means to beat the crap out of someone, although it is often used in sports when someone is badly defeated.

Edited to add correct name of referenced work.

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Word Detective has an entry on "cleaning someone's clock" here. He says that to "fix someone's clock," meaning to "finish someone" was first attributed to O. Henry in 1908. The first citation for "cleaning someone's clock" came in 1959, though he thinks it was around before that.

Interestingly, Word Detective also says it could come possibly come from another source (beyond the "faces" and "punching in the face"):

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Even with all this evidence tying faces and punches together, I must say that there is another possible source for "clean someone's clock." In railroad slang, an engineer who applies the train's air brakes in an emergency is said to "clean the clock" or "wipe the gauge" as the speedometer needle drops to zero. It seems logical that such a graphic metaphor would be the perfect way to describe stopping an opponent in his tracks, and even if this is not the source of the phrase, it may have contributed to its popularization.

Of course, as often happens in this business, Michael Quinion has a different story. While Word Detective dates to clean one's clock back to 1959, Quinion traced it back to 1908, with this quote:

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The first example that I’ve come across is a baseball report in the Trenton Evening Times in July 1908: “It took the Thistles just one inning to clean the clocks of the Times boys.”

To clean, in the sense of vanquishing or drubbing, he dated back to 1871. Quinion also mentions the railroad reference.

I think Word Detective may be right that the phrase originated with the "hitting in the face" reference, but then was popularized because of the railroad reference.

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The writer of this blog (our3lynns) says she learned it from her father and that it came from the world of boxing, though she gives no sources.

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This last phrase, “clean your clock” finds its origins in the realm of boxing. Clean in this context means to give a good thrashing, not scrub you with a brush, and clock is used to represent your face (as in the “face” of a clock). The earliest use of this phrase in printed media occurred in early 1900’s, and naturally appeared in the sports section of a newspaper.

She talks about when her daughter first heard the phrase.

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“Daddy! Let’s play some games after supper! I can be on your team and Maddy can be on Grandpa’s!” the princess exclaimed as the coals grew warmer.

“Sounds like a plan. How about some Yahtzee, dad?” I asked.

“Works for me. I’ll clean your clocks,” my father responded in his usual good humor. Irelynn had no idea what he was talking about.

“Ok, grandpa. I guess we can play Yahtzee after you’re done cleaning our clocks,” Irelynn said, disappointed that she would have to wait for grandpa to literally clean all of the clocks in the house before we could play Yahtzee. Who knows how long that could take?

I have been wondering after my post here, how do we know that Quinion and Word Detective and dictionaries have the correct information? I mean, what if they just copy from each other? For example, while I really do respect Quinion a lot, his and Word Detective's comment on the railroad etymology for "cleaning the clock" made me wonder. What if someone made that up and then somebody picked it up from him and then somebody from him, and so on?

How does one go about verifying the origin of words? We've probably talked about this before, but this thread made me wonder.

Time travel.

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How does one go about verifying the origin of words? We've probably talked about this before, but this thread made me wonder.

The recent BBC programme, Balderdash and Piffle, was all about the way in which the OED does just this.

What if someone made that up and then somebody picked it up from him and then somebody from him, and so on?

That's pretty much what happens with many online lists of inkhorn terms, tough and rare words, and such. Many B&M popular dictionaries do just that, too. That's why dictionaries like the OED give citations from books other than dictionaries. (I seem to remember that one of the editorial choices made by the first editors of the OED was to exclude words that only appeared in dictionaries.

There is even a neologism, "netymology", to describe folk etymologies that spread via the intarweb.

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That's pretty much what happens with many online lists of inkhorn terms, tough and rare words, and such.

I know what you're thinking...that's what happened to "epicaricacy." I suppose so, at least with the American spelling. After all, it's only the Greek spelling that's in Bailey's.

Does that mean I am throwing in the towel on that word? Nah. After all, I even have a Blog on it! However, many of the dictionaries have obviously copied from each other on that word. The only one that had any kind of etymology on it, including the Bailey's citation, was Peter Novobatzky and Ammon Shea's book on "Depraved and Insulting English."

P.S. I will give WWFTD credit for waiting until he checked out Bailey's before putting "epicaricacy" into his online dictionary.

Still, there is considerable copying from one to another, I think.