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Show j flow It Started 1 1 i j By Jean Xeivlon E 49 mi "By the Skin of Your Teeth" IT IS unnecessary to affirm the popularity pop-ularity of this expression to indicate indi-cate a narrow escape or achieving something by a very narrow margin. We hear it used every day in common speech. As a man escapes "by the skin of his teeth" being injured by an automobile, auto-mobile, sometimes it Is also said that he made a train or came through a test "by the skin of his teeth." Always Al-ways it means that he "had the break," that he had the benefit of just the right side of the dividing line. Though It has a slangy tone, the phrase is time-honored and has an auspicious origin. For when Job. iu the Old Testament was describing the miseries to which the Lord had subjected sub-jected him, said : "I am escaped by the skin of my teeth," he coined a catch phrase which has come down to popular usage in present-day speech. One version has the original reference as: "I must sustain myself with the gums of my teeth." (. 1032. Bell Syndicate.) WNU Service. |