APAD: Handbags at ten paces

Meaning:

  `Handbags at ten paces', sometimes shortened just to `handbags', is a comic

  reference to a confrontation which is histrionic but which doesn't involve

  physical violence. Such confrontations are also called handbag situations.

 

Background:

   This British phrase might sound odd to anyone who is not familiar with the

   earlier pistols at ten paces, which relates to duelling. That phrase, and its

   counterpart pistols at dawn, were the stating of the arrangements that

   preceded duels. ...

 

   The handbags at ten paces and handbags at dawn versions began to be used in

   the 1980s to describe confrontations between players in football matches.

   Professional footballers know they will be sent off if they hit another

   player, so emotion has to be expressed via posturing, facial grimacing and

   verbal abuse. The implication carried by the phrases was that, although a

   great deal of preamble to violence was shown, the actual confrontations were

   in the nature of `I'll scratch you eyes out' cat-fights. These were typified

   by the many high-profile matches between Manchester United and Arsenal in the

   years around the turn of the millennium. These matches were usually highly

   charged as they often had a decisive effect on the outcome of the Premiership

   championship. This, coupled with the fact that many of the players had

   reputations for violent play but didn't want to risk getting sent off, led to

   several handbags at ten paces incidents.

 

   The earliest record I can find of the term in print is from a piece headed

   Who said what in the world of sport in 1986, in The Times 1 January 1987:

    

     "It was a case of handbags at three paces."

    

   Clearly, the precise number of paces isn't significant.

    

   Why handbags? Well, as well as the obvious effeminate imagery, the phrase was

   coined when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. She was said to give

   ministers who she saw as slackers a `good handbagging', that is, a verbal

   dressing down.

 

   It may also have been influenced by the Monty Python sketch - The Batley

   Townswomens' Guild presents the Battle of Pearl Harbor, in which the Python

   team, dressed as women, recreate the battle by flailing at each other with

   handbags.

 

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]

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I suppose handbag situations often involve barking dogs that don't bite. They

wouldn't last long as even dogs get tired. In the end, no one's hurt and things

go back to the way like before.

 

It might not even be personal. Nobody's calling them handbags yet but in the

UFC, for example, veteran fighters could taunt each other long before the

faceoff where they put on a show of hostility. In a way, it's marketing, all the

way until they are in the octagon.