President Donald Trump is encouraging the protestors in Iran to continue taking to the streets and voicing their anger at the repressive regime of the mullahs.
He has also said he is prepared to take action to support them, although exactly what action is unclear.
The expression Trump used was that he is ‘locked and loaded’ and ready to come to the aid of the protestors.
Which raises the question—what exactly does ‘locked and loaded mean, and where does it come from?
The meaning, it turns out, is fairly straight forward—it is related (as you have probably already worked out) to firearms.
The Oxford English Dictionary says that ‘locked and loaded’ means ‘To prepare a firearm for firing by pulling back and ‘locking’ the bolt and loading the ammunition.’
Although it can also be used figuratively to mean, ‘to ready oneself for action or confrontation.’
So, ‘locked and loaded’ refers to a firearm that has a round in the chamber and the safety catch-off, meaning it’s ready to fire.
The earliest appearance in print that the experts at the Oxford has been able to find is from a piece in the New York Times in November of 1940.
That piece quotes a firing range officer booming through his microphone the order ‘lock and load.’
Two thoughts on this: first, I find this surprisingly early, I would have expected the expression to be of much more recent coinage; and second as a non-gun person it always looks backwards to me.
Surely, you load the gun and then lock it (in the firing position)?
But, as I say, I’m a non-gun person so what would I know.
The next citation in the Oxford is from 1983, so perhaps it was coined early but caught on much later?
The first time I can ever remember hearing it, it was spoken by Mister Data in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
At any rate, is it clearly now part of conversational English, and is (most probably) used most often in a figurative sense, rather than with reference to literal firearms.
Let’s hope that’s how Trump used it!
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