Glossary entry

English term or phrase:

A lead pipe cinch

Italian translation:

una passeggiata/un gioco da ragazzi

Added to glossary by Alessandra Renna
Sep 6, 2008 10:02
15 yrs ago
2 viewers *
English term

A lead pipe cinch

English to Italian Other Idioms / Maxims / Sayings -
In the script of a play, the mother is encouraging her son to go for an interview to get a job as pianist. She stresses his qualities and says:

You'll knock them dead, you're a lead pipe cinch!

THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!
Change log

Sep 6, 2008 17:15: Alessandra Renna Created KOG entry

Proposed translations

+1
14 mins
Selected

sarà una passeggiata

un'idea
lead-pipe cinch
(Amer. slang) certain of the result, a foregone conclusion Example: The Jets are a lead pipe cinch to win the game. They're better. Etymology: The figurative sense of "cinch" is recorded from the 1880s on. Generally, it's the piece of a lead pipe that might have been used to tighten a strap. Maybe, the origin is in the plumbing trade itself, on the basis that there might have been some device that held, or cinched, pieces of pipe together. It might have been a version of a device sometimes known as a strap wrench, which is used when the jaws of a standard monkey wrench would damage the item being worked on. In all cases, "cinch" came from the saddle-girth meaning of the word, which itself had been borrowed from Spanish "cincha" in the 1860s. A saddle that had been tightly cinched was secure, so something that was a cinch was a safe or sure thing, an idea which developed into the slang sense of something that was a certainty. "Lead-pipe cinch" suddenly appears in the early 1890s. It's obvious enough that a lead-pipe cinch is one up on the common or garden variety of cinch, so that "lead-pipe" here is what grammarians call an intensifier. But why should it be so? This is where we part company with the facts and go drifting off on the wayward currents of surmise and supposition. Robert Chapman's "Dictionary of American Slang" suggested it is because a lead pipe is easily bent, "in case one has bet on such a feat". Eric Partridge thought it came about through the effectiveness of a length of lead pipe as a weapon. Jonathon Green argues it is the solidity of the lead pipe that is most important. Unlike many modern urban folk, in the 1890s everyone who used the phrase knew exactly what a cinch was in its literal sense. So "lead-pipe cinch" had to resonate somehow with that. Jonathon Lighter, in the "Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang", points out that there was a brief flowering of another sense, that of having an especially firm grip on something. The idea was presumably that if a leather cinch was effective, one made of lead would be even more so, or that one's grip on lead pipe could be firmer than on a leather strap.
http://www.translationdirectory.com/glossaries/glossary014_l...


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Note added at 15 min (2008-09-06 10:17:38 GMT)
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You'll knock them dead, you're a lead pipe cinch!
vedrai! li stenderai tutti! Sarà una passeggiata per te!

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Note added at 18 min (2008-09-06 10:20:47 GMT)
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an option: sarà un gioco da ragazzi!
Peer comment(s):

agree Umberto Cassano
2 hrs
grazie, Umberto
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "thanks a lot! "
+2
7 mins

Li farai a pezzi, sei bravo senza dubbio

it means that there is no doubt about someone's ability.
Peer comment(s):

agree vale87
1 hr
grazie
agree leslylopez
1 hr
grazie lesly
Something went wrong...
14 mins

un successo sicuro

Il significato di "lead pipe cinch" è "a certainty, an assured success."
www.answers.com/topic/lead-pipe-cinch

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Note added at 23 mins (2008-09-06 10:26:18 GMT)
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Cara Giovanna,
Secondo me nel tuo contesto la mamma vuole dire: Mi sembra che tu sia destinato ad un successo sicuro.
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