15 Oct
2009
15 Oct
'09
9:19 a.m.
On Thu, 15 Oct 2009, fons(a)kokkinizita.net wrote:
I didn't find this in the first links someone posted... so here goes:
The phrase comes from racing (track and field, horse racing). Usually, a
foot race is begun when someone fires a gun. If you start before the gun
fires (a false start), it's called "jumping the gun." I.e. you jumped out
across the starting line before the gun fired. So, as those other sites
said, it means to start prematurely.
HTH,
Gabriel
that makes sense now, so someone jumped the gun.
Some time ago I learned on this list the expression
'jumping the shark' - IIRC it was Paul Davis using
it. But what is 'jumping the gun' ?