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Can't do something to save my life


This phrase traces back to author Anthony Trollope and his book The Kellys and the O'Kellys, published in 1848. The line, slightly different than the phrase as we know it now, read this way: “If it was to save my life and theirs, I can’t get up small talk for the rector and his curate.”

It means that if my very life depended on completing a task or something then I would most likely die.





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