Carpenter’s Column: From the Fool’s Guide to Warfare Stylebook

The following idiomatic expressions are interchangeable and are recommended for use by the Secretary of War and others in the Administration in response to any question asked during a press conference.

For example, the idiom having a moment in current affairs, “Locked and Loaded,” long ago lost its original meaning. As early as 1745, the Royal Navy used gunlocks on cannons. Before the cannons could be fired, explicit confirmation was required that a cannon was locked (fitted with its firing lock) and loaded. By 1793, the phrase also referred to flintlock muskets that were ready to fire.