Am I trying to take someone's Frosted Flakes? Is this sage advice or an old wives' tale?
Learn English – Meaning and etymology of “tiger by the tail”
etymologymeaningphrases
etymologymeaningphrases
Am I trying to take someone's Frosted Flakes? Is this sage advice or an old wives' tale?
Best Answer
There's this from William Safire in The New York Times, writing about the phrase's origin:
The earliest use of the phrase in print that I can find is from 1829 in a Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava, in the Year 1827:
This lends credence to the Chinese-origin theory.