on a short leash

[BobK]

If it is an extremely short leash ... you got them by the short and curly.
I wouldn't consider this rude but it isn't exactly polite. I wouldn't use it in a formal situation, actually I might, but most wouldn't.


Not a teacher.

In Br Eng it's plural. I had a not entirely sympathetic maths teacher who would control a recalcitrant pupil by holding him by the short hairs on the nape of the neck and shaking his head back and forth - but those hairs are not curly at all (in most people). In less polite society people refer to 'the short and curlies' - referring to an entirely different, and more sensitive, part of the body. I have no idea which came first - curlies or hairs; but I've never heard anything but the plural, and the 'curlies' variation is not at all formal.

b

[freezeframe]

Since we veered south of the border...


Another idiom is "to have someone by the balls".

[SanMar]

In Br Eng it's plural. I had a not entirely sympathetic maths teacher who would control a recalcitrant pupil by holding him by the short hairs on the nape of the neck and shaking his head back and forth - but those hairs are not curly at all (in most people). In less polite society people refer to 'the short and curlies' - referring to an entirely different, and more sensitive, part of the body. I have no idea which came first - curlies or hairs; but I've never heard anything but the plural, and the 'curlies' variation is not at all formal.

b

You may be right. I can't say with absolute certainty that it is not curlies come to think of it. I think here the reference is pubes rather than hair on the back of the neck though. But I am not an expert.

And yes it is not used formally, that was a slip on my part sorry!:)

Not a teacher.
:)

(BTW what an *ssh*l* Math teacher you had.)