Idioms: Down to the Wire

I never really thought about idioms that much before I moved to Japan. Since I "teach" English over here, I'm often asked to explain idioms. I can explain how we use the, but most of the time I have NO idea why we use them. I had lunch with one of my "students", Osami, today. Osami works for Sony and is working on a big demonstration for a new camcorder project that will be released early next year. We had lunch from 12-1 and his presentation was at 3 and his group wasn't quite finished.

I told Osami that they were going to be working "down to the wire".

I decided I should Google where this expression came from for my own knowledge and now you, faithful readers, get to know as well!

"The origin is in sport, though not football but horse-racing. American racetracks in the latter part of the nineteenth century — before the days of cameras — had a wire strung across the track above the finishing line to help stewards decide which nose had got across the line first. An early example appeared in Scribner’s Magazine in July 1889: “As the end of the stand was reached Timarch worked up to Petrel, and the two raced down to the ‘wire,’ cheered on by the applause of the spectators. They ended the first half mile of the race head and head, passing lapped together under the wire, and beginning in earnest the mile which was yet to be traversed”. So, a race that was undecided until the very last moment was said to go down to the wire."

I feel a little smarter now.