I. Idiom of the Week—“At loggerheads”
To be “at loggerheads” with someone means to be locked in a seemingly irreconcilable dispute with them. The phrase 'at loggerheads' is of British origin. The singular noun 'loggerhead' has been used in several contexts - as a species of turtle, a bird and as a place name. However, the original usage of “loggerhead” was by William Shakespeare, who used it to refer to a stupid person in his play Love's Labours Lost, in 1588:
"Ah you logger-head, you were borne to do me shame."
A 'logger-head' was literally a 'block-head'. A logger was a thick block of timber which was fastened to a horse's leg to prevent it from running away. In the 17th century, a loggerhead was also recorded as 'an iron instrument with a long handle used for melting pitch and for heating liquids'.
It is likely that the use of these tools as weapons was what was being referred to when rivals were first said to be 'at loggerheads'. The first known use of the phrase “at loggerheads: in print is in Francis Kirkman's, The English Rogue, 1680:
"They frequently quarrell'd about their Sicilian wenches, and indeed... they seem... to be worth the going to Logger-heads for."
The phrase continued to be used to denote physical confrontation, as in the following citation from 1681:
“So we went to loggerheads together, I think that was the word, or Fisty-cuffs.“
Bonus Idiom: ‘Fisticuffs' is another two-word term from around the same date that was later amalgamated into a single word. A “cuff” was a blow with the open hand. A “fisty cuff” was a cuff using the fist, i.e. a punch. Therefore, when someone is in a bare-knuckled fight, we say they are engaging in “fisticuffs.”
But I digress. Loggerheads is also the name of three small towns in the United Kingdom - in Staffordshire, in Lancashire and in Mold, North Wales. Each town's residents claim that 'at loggerheads' originated in their home-town. Alas, despite the early citations referring to 'going to' loggerheads, this isn't the case. The towns were named after the term, not the other way around. It’s not clear exactly when the meaning of “at loggerheads” evolved from being in physical confrontation to having irreconcilable differences, but that is the accepted usage today.
