APAD: Lick into shape

Meaning:

    To transform a faulty object or venture into something that works effectively.

 

Background:

   You don't need to watch many 1950s B-feature westerns before you come across

   some hapless cowpoke getting a `licking'. That use of `lick', that is,

   `thrash in a fight', is pretty much restricted to the USA, although it did

   actually originate in England in the 1500s. Beating someone into shape sounds

   as though it might be the source of `lick into shape' but it is in fact the

   common use of `lick', that is, `pass the tongue over', a meaning that dates

   from a few centuries earlier, that the phrase alludes to.

 

   The first example I can find of the figurative use of the phrase is in

   Gilbert Burnet's An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of

   England, 1699:

 

     "Men did not know how to mould and frame it; but at last it was licked into

     shape."

 

   `Lick into shape' sprang from the belief held in medieval Europe that bear

   cubs were born shapeless and had to be made into ursine form by their

   mother's licking.

 

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]

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Matt got his blackbelt a year ago and had since moved to Truckee. He visited

back in January and taught a class. I chatted with him at the door as I was

leaving and he complimented me on my progress.

 

"I can take a beating today," I laughed, "and recover the next day to take

another one. That was all the progress I made."

 

I had some strength but was in no way gifted or super strong. I was not even as

technical as some of the guys. There was no magic. Only years of consistent

training licked me into shape.