handbags at ten paces n. a verbal spat, usually between athletes on the field of play. Editorial Note: Probably related to any number of Monty Python sketches which have the actors dressed in drag, battling each other with handbags, such as in Series 1, Episode 11, “Battle of Pearl Harbor.” The Oxford English Dictionary has an entry for the broader use of handbag in related forms. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
She sells seashells by the seashore. Who is the she in this tongue twister? Some claim it’s the young Mary Anning, who went on to become a famous 19th-century British paleontologist. Dubious perhaps, but the story of her rise from seaside...
When you’re distracted by trying to get the perfect photo at a wedding or fiddling with your camera during a solar eclipse, you’re missing out on some of the experience itself. There’s a term for this: It’s called...