You’ve said it. Your friends have said it. Maybe your grandmother said it about the weird guy down the street. “I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole” rolls off the tongue so naturally, we rarely stop to wonder why we’re imagining ourselves wielding an absurdly long stick. But this phrase might have a darker origin than you’d think, one that involves dead bodies in New Orleans.
Most etymologists point to the mid-1700s, when the expression went “I wouldn’t touch that with a barge pole”. Barge poles were long wooden implements used to push canal boats along and fend off docks. Before that came “not to be handled with a pair of tongs,” appearing in print as far back as 1639. The imagery makes sense: if something’s so objectionable you need the longest tool available to maintain maximum distance, you’re making your point clear. But that’s the sanitized version.
Learn the grim history here.
