Chrysti The Wordsmith: Back to the Drawing Board

Greetings I'm Christie the wordsmith the common expression. Look Before You Leap was inspired by one of the fables of Aesop Shakespeare was the first to record the phrase at one fell swoop. And from the Old Testament comes the idiom handwriting on the wall. These are three examples of the hundreds of English cliches inspired by fable and literature but one of our most beloved expressions was invented by New Yorker magazine cartoonist Peter Arno in 1041 Arno drew a crashed plane with its nose buried in the ground. The pilot is seen parachuting to safety in the background while military personnel and ambulances raced to the crash site in the center of the scene an aircraft designer with rolled up blueprints under his arm strides away from the demolished plane saying well back to the old drawing board. This caption became a permanent American cliche in very short order. We all use it when we're convinced that a scheme has gone awry and needs redesigning. The expression

is used in a variety of contexts as in this example from the New York Times in 2004. Quote As prices have outstripped budgets building committees have literally been sent back to the drawing board and are asking taxpayers for more money or seeking more from federal or state funds. I'm Christie the wordsmith. The series is recorded and produced in the studios of KGO famine the campus of Montana State University in Bozeman. CHRISTIE The wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.