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featherynscaleI got more than ten answers to my question about the origin of the phrase "balls to the wall", but most of them are good/entertaining/way fucking wrong, so they're all listed below.
To play in this part, choose the answer you like the best, and comment with that number. You get one point for picking the "correct" answer, and one point for each vote your answer recieves. (One person did give me the "correct" answer, but also gave me a secondary explanation, so I'm including both of their answers in the list, and they will get points for votes on the secondary answer, but not the "correct" one. Correct is in quotes because etymology is a tricky beast.)
No points for voting for your own answer.
EDIT: Voting is closed tomorrow morning circa 9 a.m.
1. The phrase comes from the Scottish Highlands, where narrow mountain passes, and the occasional rockslide, meant that sometimes these paths would become very, very narrow. To avoid falling off the cliff, you had to press yourself very closely to the rock wall on the other side of the path, focusing VERY INTENTLY on how you were inching along. The joke was, if you weren't pressing so close to the wall that your balls were touching it, you weren't close enough to avoid falling off the cliff.
2. Dodgeball is a hard core game. If you don't totally bring it on, you are gone and usually with bruises. "Balls to the wall" means you are ready to go with all the intensity you can muster.
3. It comes from the Robert Rodriguez movie "Planet Terror" in which a plucky Quentin Tarantino plays a misogynistic soldier with the intent to rape. As he is defeated, his zombifying genitalia goes flying off of him and splatters on the wall behind him, giving rise to the saying "balls to the wall".
4. Of a successful party, it would be said that "the ball's to the walls," i.e. the ballroom is completely filled with guests. Through repetition and crude humor this expression became "partying with our balls to the walls," which is more like the usage we know today.
5. It originated in soccer - when the men line up before a goal to protect it, i.e. sacrificing their balls in a wall.
6. AVIATION - control sticks on aircraft end in a ball-shape, throwing them to their maximum (i.e. the wall) for evasive manouvers, etc. Pulling the entire steering 'wheel' to one's crotch to 'climb the sky' is one of the more popular explanations.
7. English football hooligans are known for their drunken nights out after a match, during which a minor row can easily escalate to a full-on pub fight. One evening, a particularly enthusiastic group of yobs had brought their footballs with them to the after-match pint, where they saw a group of fans for the other team. Tempers flared, punches were thrown, and as tehy went at it hammer and tongs one of the youths lifted his football to throw it -- at which point the publican shouted "Oi, you! Put yer balls agin' the wall before ye brawls through me walls!"
8. In the days of the renaissance, grand balls were held. Because there was expense in hosting each guest, only the most grandest of occasions were cause to invite so many people as to overcrowd the ballroom, thus balls to the walls.
9. The expression traces it's roots back to the time of Vlad The Impaler and his pendacity for sadistic tortures. When especially drunk (usually after a long day of placing screaming Turks on long poles) he would occasionally find need to make 'eunuchs' out of the help... through a process so horrendous, so monstrously cruel it can only be summed up in the words of noted historian, Howard Zinn who said "Daaaaamn that was some harsh ass shit there!"
Vlad then would have the offending testicles stuffed and mounted in his trophy room. To this day the people of Transylvania shudder at the phrase -"Balls to the wall"
10. Something about steam engine throttle thingies innit? The balls on top of the lever would literally hit the wall of the engine car when in full throttle.
Or pants.
11. It is a direct reference to the enthusiasm of men who are being fellated at a 'Glory Hole'. In order to acquire adequate penetration of the hidden orifice (and allowing for the thicknes of the wall and the relative lack of length of the average penis) the male in question instinctively presses firmly against the surface, mildly constricting the testes in the process.
12. It's a bastardized Anglicized version of the Norwegian idiom, dig baal ska vãllen, literally, "the ball shall fall/drop," from mechanical water clocks which would set off an alarm by dropping ball bearings onto a bell.
It means approximately, 'Time's up,' but evolved to mean, 'Hurry up and do it quickly and intensely.'
13. This originally referred to sexual intercourse performed leaning against a wall, in which the balls' owner thrusts forcefully enough to cause his testicles to swing forward and hit the wall behind the recipient of his affection.
To play in this part, choose the answer you like the best, and comment with that number. You get one point for picking the "correct" answer, and one point for each vote your answer recieves. (One person did give me the "correct" answer, but also gave me a secondary explanation, so I'm including both of their answers in the list, and they will get points for votes on the secondary answer, but not the "correct" one. Correct is in quotes because etymology is a tricky beast.)
No points for voting for your own answer.
EDIT: Voting is closed tomorrow morning circa 9 a.m.
1. The phrase comes from the Scottish Highlands, where narrow mountain passes, and the occasional rockslide, meant that sometimes these paths would become very, very narrow. To avoid falling off the cliff, you had to press yourself very closely to the rock wall on the other side of the path, focusing VERY INTENTLY on how you were inching along. The joke was, if you weren't pressing so close to the wall that your balls were touching it, you weren't close enough to avoid falling off the cliff.
2. Dodgeball is a hard core game. If you don't totally bring it on, you are gone and usually with bruises. "Balls to the wall" means you are ready to go with all the intensity you can muster.
3. It comes from the Robert Rodriguez movie "Planet Terror" in which a plucky Quentin Tarantino plays a misogynistic soldier with the intent to rape. As he is defeated, his zombifying genitalia goes flying off of him and splatters on the wall behind him, giving rise to the saying "balls to the wall".
4. Of a successful party, it would be said that "the ball's to the walls," i.e. the ballroom is completely filled with guests. Through repetition and crude humor this expression became "partying with our balls to the walls," which is more like the usage we know today.
5. It originated in soccer - when the men line up before a goal to protect it, i.e. sacrificing their balls in a wall.
6. AVIATION - control sticks on aircraft end in a ball-shape, throwing them to their maximum (i.e. the wall) for evasive manouvers, etc. Pulling the entire steering 'wheel' to one's crotch to 'climb the sky' is one of the more popular explanations.
7. English football hooligans are known for their drunken nights out after a match, during which a minor row can easily escalate to a full-on pub fight. One evening, a particularly enthusiastic group of yobs had brought their footballs with them to the after-match pint, where they saw a group of fans for the other team. Tempers flared, punches were thrown, and as tehy went at it hammer and tongs one of the youths lifted his football to throw it -- at which point the publican shouted "Oi, you! Put yer balls agin' the wall before ye brawls through me walls!"
8. In the days of the renaissance, grand balls were held. Because there was expense in hosting each guest, only the most grandest of occasions were cause to invite so many people as to overcrowd the ballroom, thus balls to the walls.
9. The expression traces it's roots back to the time of Vlad The Impaler and his pendacity for sadistic tortures. When especially drunk (usually after a long day of placing screaming Turks on long poles) he would occasionally find need to make 'eunuchs' out of the help... through a process so horrendous, so monstrously cruel it can only be summed up in the words of noted historian, Howard Zinn who said "Daaaaamn that was some harsh ass shit there!"
Vlad then would have the offending testicles stuffed and mounted in his trophy room. To this day the people of Transylvania shudder at the phrase -"Balls to the wall"
10. Something about steam engine throttle thingies innit? The balls on top of the lever would literally hit the wall of the engine car when in full throttle.
Or pants.
11. It is a direct reference to the enthusiasm of men who are being fellated at a 'Glory Hole'. In order to acquire adequate penetration of the hidden orifice (and allowing for the thicknes of the wall and the relative lack of length of the average penis) the male in question instinctively presses firmly against the surface, mildly constricting the testes in the process.
12. It's a bastardized Anglicized version of the Norwegian idiom, dig baal ska vãllen, literally, "the ball shall fall/drop," from mechanical water clocks which would set off an alarm by dropping ball bearings onto a bell.
It means approximately, 'Time's up,' but evolved to mean, 'Hurry up and do it quickly and intensely.'
13. This originally referred to sexual intercourse performed leaning against a wall, in which the balls' owner thrusts forcefully enough to cause his testicles to swing forward and hit the wall behind the recipient of his affection.