Stupid Question ™
By John Ruch
© 2003
Q: Is the saying, “In
like flint” or “In like fline”?
—Jim Otis
A: The saying is actually, “In like Flynn.” Despite much unnecessary confusion peddled by slang dictionaries, it clearly refers to the late movie star Errol Flynn.
You have the phrase wrong because a) a lot of people have forgotten who Flynn was, and b) the punning title of the 1967 spy-movie spoof “In Like Flint” (so-called for lead character Derek Flint) confused people.
As slangster J.D. Lighter noted, “like Flynn” is an intensifier of a much older slang use of “in,” meaning certain of success.
“In like Flynn” first appeared in the early 1940s (when Flynn was most famous) and implied speed and/or success in an action or scheme. In the 1960s, it also specifically began to imply sexual success or penetration. More recently, it has meant inclusion in a group or relationship.
The classic explanation is a 1946 report in the journal “American Speech” in which ex-World War II pilots reported that the phrase meant, “Everything is OK” and referred to pulling off something dangerous as easily as Flynn did in his adventure films. (He was a big action star and made several World War II-themed movies.)
The later sexual meaning may come from Flynn’s notorious promiscuity and the scandal in which he was charged (and acquitted) of statutory rape of two teenage girls.
Some
British and Aussie slangsters claim the sexual
meaning was the original, and that Australians actually coined the phrase. It
is true that the Aussie meaning of the phrase is exclusively sexual, but its
first citation there is from the 1960s—when the phrase first gained sexual
meaning in the
There are reports that Flynn himself (who died in 1959) was taunted with and outraged by the phrase. If true, that does support an earlier sexual meaning (though his official web site, run by his descendants, is InLikeFlynn.com). But the Aussie theory seems a thin attempt to emphasize Flynn’s Australian heritage.
The Aussie
crowd also proposes an independent
Flynn was a national party chairman. But he was hardly famous, and historians have never linked him with the phrase, which first appears in journalism, sportswriting and military slang, not politics.
Amateur
word hunter Barry Popik recently discovered a 1943
However, the phrase really being discussed was an abbreviated version apparently popular in the paper, “I’m Flynn,” which has not survived. Also, the explanation was offered by two readers. I love you, dear readers, but I don’t trust all of you, past, present or future.
Obviously,
the phrase stuck because of the “in/Flynn” rhyme. And even if the phrase came
from a random rhyme for “in,” it seems impossible for the extremely famous
Errol not to have influenced the word choice. I say Flynn was in like himself
on this one.