Brass tacks

The meaning of this expression as in “get down to brass tacks” is to focus on the fundamental issues or get to the basic facts. The origin, however, has yet to be unravelled satisfactorily. The first citation for the expression is thought to be American from about 1860. There are a number of theories about the origin and one is that it is a misspelling of brass tax. There was indeed a tax on brass during the 19th century but most etymologists have now discarded this origin. The two most plausible origins are that the original brass tacks were those embedded into shop counters as linear measurements for fabric, rope or chain sold by the metre or yard. In using them, both the shopkeeper and customer, one supposes, would be concentrating on the key issue at hand. The second theory of origin, one favoured by Eric Partridge, the second edition of Fowler and others is that brass tacks is simply rhyming slang for facts, brass tacks/facts. The 1860 American citation, however, appears to be earlier than any rhyming slang citation, and also it is well known that rhyming slang is not a language phenomenon that is widely associated with American English. Until new evidence comes to light, the linear measurement theory remains the most probable origin.