Vitto - 18 August 2009 02:03 AM
What’s the meaning of this idiom?
Means no cheating?
Thanks~
I think the expression is “to have nothing up your sleeve.”
That does mean you are not going to pull any tricks or to cheat.
The idea is that card cheats can hide extra cards up their sleeves, and then—when they want to win, they can
retrieve that hidden ace and inconspicuously add it to the hand they were actually dealt.
The idea that tricks could be hidden up the sleeve spread to stage magicians, who supposedly assured the
audience that “I have nothing up my sleeves, ladies and gentlemen”—while pulling his cuffs up to show that it’s true.
So if someone assures you that there’s nothing up his sleeves, he is asserting that there is no trick, no deception, no
hidden advantage, no cheating—just all on the up-and-up.
Saying that expression is even sometimes accompanied by a mock gesture of pulling back one’s cuffs—or at least
stretching the arms out of the sleeves—as a visual demonstration of the words (and presumably, of their truthfulness.)
Naturally the expression is used figuratively —except during parodies of magic acts, perhaps, or when kids put on magic shows.
