A Nexis search <expression w/5 cost w/3 arm w/3 leg> turns up the following
from Miles Kingston, Whatever the Question, George Will Furnish the Answer,
The Independent (London), March 25, 1994, at 17:
Where does the expression ''to cost an arm and a leg' ' come from? Does
it have an origin in carpentry?
Yes. In the days when everything was hand-made and custom-built, it was
harder to get spare parts than it is now - if you can imagine it! - so
a master
carpenter would often, when making a set of chairs, supply a spare leg
and a
spare arm to anticipate any breakages. Of course, he would charge the
customer
extra for this, and so any unexpected additional charge became known as
costing
an arm and a leg.
But substitute "phrase" for "expression," and you find the same newspaper
six years later (James Rampton, Staying In: The Victorians, The Independent
(London), Dec. 30, 2000, at 47) with a different explanation:
Shadowy figures such as Burke and Hare would bribe church sextons to
let them
dig up freshly-buried corpses to sell to medical students. The practice
gave
rise to the phrase "costing an arm and a leg" .
It's a puzzle wrapped in an enigma sausage roll, placed in a bottle with
nine scorpions.
Kent Olson
UVA Law Library
kolson@virginia.edu
At 01:45 PM 1/2/2003 -0800, Willats, Marilyn B. wrote:
>I'm trying to find the derivation of the phrase "it cost an arm and a
>leg." I've checked various dictionaries of phrases, online sources and
>the O.E.D. One source I checked said that it was probably a relatively
>recent phrase (post-WWII), but didn't give an explanation. A colleague
>has suggested that it might refer to insurance payments for the loss of an
>arm or a leg. Any ideas? Many thanks -
>
>Marilyn B. Willats
>Reference Librarian
>Library Associates at Pillsbury Winthrop
>50 Fremont St., 6th Floor
>San Francisco, CA 94105
>Phone: (415) 983-1749
>Fax: (415) 983-1200
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