Why is it called that?

In our daily lives, we often use expressions without thinking too much about where they come from. Today we're looking at two of them; “crosshairs” and “balls to the wall”.

Crosshairs is usually a reference to an aiming mechanism and to say someone or something is in your crosshairs means you're completely concentrating on it.

Ball to the wall is an expression for speed and commitment. Going all out, or all in.

Interestingly enough, both have their origins in vintage aviation.

Crosshairs comes from the American Norden bombsight, a revolutionary new technology during WWII. The air-force tried all manners of different materials to get an accurate, well crosshairs for the sighting scope, even Black Widow silk, but nothing worked. The temperature differences the B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-29 Super Fortresses were exposed to were so extreme that nothing seemed to work in such a delicate instrument.

Finally the scientists decided to try human hair. The problem lay in finding blonde hair that was long enough, at least 22 inches (56cm), which meant they had to use ladies hair, but the hair couldn't have been exposed to either chemicals (dyes) or extreme heat (curling or straightening irons). With the hair styles at the time, this proved to be exceedingly difficult.

Finally they placed ads looking for hair donations for “meteorological instruments”. A woman, Mary Babnik Brown saw one such ad and decided to donate. It turned out a success, and the official crosshairs was born.

Balls to the wall, despite sounding dirty have nothing to do with the male reproductive organs. Instead it's a reference to the throttle levers in old airplanes. They had round spherical tops, or balls, and when the time came, the pilot would slam them forward towards wall of the control panel. Thus balls to the wall, became synonymous with going as fast as possible, and being 100% committed.

It's in a sense similar to the expression “Pedal to the metal” which in turn originates from the world of racing. The pedal is of course the gas pedal, and the metal is the floor of the car. Cars were a lot more metal back in the day.

Well, that's that as they say. I hope you have a great week, and I'll see you next time!