The premise of 1991’s Father of the Bride seems simple: George Banks’s (Steve Martin) 22-year-old daughter, Annie (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), gets engaged to Bryan (George Newbern) after knowing him for three months. But George isn’t quite on board and quickly unravels, as his wife, Nina (Diane Keaton), and the rest of his family think he’s going insane. The film gave a peek into the 1990s return to family values, with the depiction of a normal, tightly-knit nuclear family. Former real-life couple Charles Shyer and Nancy Meyers co-wrote the script, and Shyer directed.

The movie is a remake of Vincente Minnelli’s Oscar-nominated film of the same name, which starred Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Bennett, and Spencer Tracy. (A TV version aired from 1961 to 1962.) That film was adapted from Edward Streeter’s 1949 novel. Both films had sequels—Father’s Little Dividend was released in 1951, and Father of the Bride Part II in 1995—and the plots of both films saw the daughters having a baby.

The remake and its sequel were rather successful: Father of the Bride grossed $89 million and became the ninth highest-grossing film of 1991; Part II grossed $76 million and ranked in 17^th place for the year. Here are 10 heartwarming facts about the wedding comedy.

1. STEVE MARTIN AGREED TO PLAY GEORGE BEFORE THE SCRIPT HAD BEEN WRITTEN.

In a unusual move, Steve Martin’s casting occurred before Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer wrote the screenplay. “It’s a gift because you know you’re writing for Steve Martin, so you know you can be funny and you can be loose and you can do all these twists and turns in the scene,” Meyers told IndieWire.

2. THE STUDIO DIDN’T WANT TO WORK WITH DIANE KEATON.

Father of the Bride was the second time Diane Keaton had worked with Meyers and Shyer; the first time was 1987’s Baby Boom, and Meyers would go on to direct Keaton in 2003’s Something’s Gotta Give. “Disney Studios—Jeffrey Katzenberg at the time—didn’t ever want to work with me,” Keaton told Film Scouts. “Charles Shyer and Nancy Myers, who’d worked with me before, had to beg to get me into Father of the Bride. I was very fortunate, because they were very staunchly for me.”

Keaton said the reason Disney/Touchstone passed on her was because her box office track record wasn’t good. “Just before Father of the Bride, I’d done a movie called The Good Mother, which was a big failure. Like, big failure. And that was it! And that was a Disney movie. So when Charles and Nancy wanted me for Father of the Bride, Disney didn’t want anything with me.”

3. IT WAS THE END TO THE “HIPPIE” WEDDING.

In an interview with The Morning Call, Martin said: “This movie represents the complete death of the hippie laurel-wreath standing-on-the-mountaintop marriage. Although it’s been dead a long time, this is the first movie to see it.” He furthered explained, “I mean, the big wedding is as much of a fad as the little wedding. So, [Father of the Bride] is a statement about something that’s probably going to be around for a long time.”

4. FRANCK EGGELHOFFER WAS BASED ON A REAL WEDDING PLANNER.

Martin Short portrayed the incomprehensible, over-the-top wedding planner Franck Eggelhoffer, who he based on Kevin Lee, who assisted with Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston’s wedding, and makes regular appearances on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. “We had a great time together,” Lee told Moviefone about working with Short.

5. A BRIDE HOUSE SOLD FOR ALMOST $2 MILLION.

The 4397-square-foot Colonial-style home, situated in Los Angeles’s Alhambra neighborhood, sold for $1,998,000 in August 2016 after being on the market for only two months. The wedding reception and the basketball game were filmed at this location, but the exteriors were filmed at a Pasadena home. In 2004 the Alhambra house sold for $1.25 million, and when it sold in 2011, it increased to $1.275 million.

Owners of the Pasadena home, Sarah Bradley and Darrell Spence, told HGTV they held their wedding reception at the house. They also said couples have proposed outside of the home, and fans of the movie and house felt “protective” when the family replaced the white picket fence. “Neighbors would see the construction and panic,” Bradley said. “We had to convince them they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference once we were done.” The couple paid $950,000 for the house in 1999, but it’s now worth $2,764,841.

6. THE WEDDING COST A WHOPPING $249,323.

BeFrugal.com broke down the wedding costs of the weddings at the center of Father of the Bride, Bridesmaids, Sex and the City, and a few other movies. Because Annie and Bryan got hitched in her parents’ backyard, the venue was free. However, Annie’s dress cost $68,000. With 572 guests at $250 per head, George shelled out $143,000 on wedding reception food. The bridesmaid dresses tacked on an additional $10,000, and flying in nine relatives from Copenhagen smacked George with a $10,323 price tag. That’s a lot, considering the median American wedding costs about $15,000.

7. MARTIN SHORT “SOFTENED” FRANCK’S ACCENT FOR FATHER OF THE BRIDE PART II.

At first, Short didn’t want to do a sequel. During a 1995 interview with Charlie Rose, Short said, “Only because it seemed like the character was such an extreme spice in the first one and it kind of had been successful and you didn’t want to taint it with an appearance.” Upon reading the script, he changed his mind. “I soften the accent a little bit,” he said. “In the first one, the character really existed as a comedic bone of contention for Steve Martin,” because everyone could understand what Franck said except George. “In this one, that’s one joke,” Short continued. “In the sequel, no one at any point says, ‘What did he say?’ Because we’ve done that. So I softened the accent a little bit without losing the character.”

8. KIMBERLY WILLIAMS-PAISLEY WORE SNEAKERS TO HER OWN WEDDING.

George Banks produces athletic shoes for a living, so in the movie, he creates a special pair for Annie to wear on her wedding day. When Kimberly Williams married country star Brad Paisley in 2003, she also donned sneakers. “Down the aisle, I wore heels, but then the rest of it I wore sneakers with the heels,” she told Glamour. “It makes perfect sense to wear sneakers because it’s such a long night.”

9. FRANCK DOESN’T THINK MUCH OF KIM KARDASHIAN.

When Short appeared on the show The Talk in 2014, the hostesses asked Short, as Franck, what he thought about Kim Kardashian. “He would say, ‘She is not bright; I did her dress,’” Short said in Franck’s accent. “She thinks soy milk is Spanish for ‘I am milk.’”

10. MARTIN THINKS FATHER OF THE BRIDE IS A “PERFECT STORY.”

“Well, I tend to think there’s movie families, and then there are families,” Martin told The Morning Call. “What I mean is—I’m not demeaning the movie at all—it’s kind of a wish family. It’s like the perfect statement of a beautiful problem: Your daughter’s getting married.” He said emotions swelled from the mundanity of getting married. “It’s a perfect story because what happens is so minor, and yet the emotions are so big. It’s like the birth of a baby. It’s so common, happening all the time, and yet it’s one of the most powerful, large things that can happen to you.”

When given to the right person at the right time, a piece of jewelry can speak volumes. With an Encode Ring, the message you’re trying to convey to your loved one will come across loud and clear: Instead of flashy gemstones or engraved terms of endearment adorning the ring, the design features sound waves tracing three seconds of heartfelt speech.

According to My Modern Met, each ring from the Japanese startup is custom-made. Buyers can record their message on the company’s website and see what their ring would look like in platinum, silver, stainless steel, and stainless or 18-karat gold. Because of the unique inflections in our voices, no two designs are identical. So while a ring engraved with the words “I love you” might feel cliché, an Encode Ring that communicates the same thing feels incredibly personal.

The design isn’t limited to regular speech: As long as the duration is less than three seconds, the sound of your dog’s bark, your child’s laugh, or crashing waves at the beach are all fair game. You can custom order a ring of your own with prices starting at about $125 (12,960 yen). 

[h/t My Modern Met]

It’s human nature to conceive of abstract ideas through more immediate, concrete experiences—which is to say, through metaphors. Most of the words we have for abstract concepts began this way. We can still find evidence of these originating metaphors in the etymological history of our words. Here are 15 of them hidden in words where we may not see them anymore.

1. COMPANION

The central root of companion is pan– from the Latin for bread. Com is from the word for “with.” A companion is a “with bread person,” a person you break bread with.

2. EXPLAIN

Explain comes from ex planare, or “out flatten.” When you explain something you flatten it out for inspection, so the meaning is laid out clearly for viewing.

3. REMORSE

The morse in remorse is from mordere, “to bite” (also found in the word morsel). When you have remorse over something, it is returning to bite at you.

4. NORMAL

In classical Latin, a norma was a carpenter’s square, used for confirming straight, right angles. To be normal is to be in accordance with the norma, to fit into the standard measurement.

5. EXPIRE

In Latin, spirare is “to breathe.” To ex spirare is to breathe out. When something expires, it has breathed out its last breath.

6. DEPEND

Pendere is to hang. It is also the root of pendulum. De- is “from,” so to depend is to hang from. When something depends on something else, it hangs from it, at its mercy if it should let go.

7. DISCORD

The cord in discord is from the Latin word for heart. When there is discord, hearts are divided or separated from each other.

8. IMPEDE

The –pede, also found in centipede and millipede, comes from the Latin for foot. Something that is impeded cannot go; its feet are entangled or otherwise obstructed.

9. INFANT

Fant is the past participle of fari, to speak. To be infant is to be non-speaking or unable to speak. The word captures a salient characteristic of babies and very young children.

10. HUMILITY

In Latin, humus is the earth, the soil, the ground (also seen in exhume, to bring something out of the ground). Humility is the characteristic of being low to the ground, and to humiliate is to bring someone to that low level.

11. OBVIOUS

Obvious comes from a joining of ob- (toward, against, in front of) and via (way, road). When something is obvious it is right there, in the way of you, in front of you in the road. You can’t miss it.

12. VERDICT

Dict is the past participle of the Latin dire, to speak or say. And ver- is the root for truth. A verdict is proclamation of a decision reached after judging the evidence, a saying of the truth.

13. IMMINENT

The Latin verb minere is to hang over or jut out. Something that is in minere, or imminent, is hanging over or jutting out so much that it is about to fall.

14. EDUCATE

The heart of this word is the root ducere, to lead. Appended to the front is e-, a shortened version of ex-, meaning “out.” To educate is to lead out. Two metaphorical views are possible, one where the student is being led out of ignorance, and another where the potential of the student is being led out by the process of education.

15. PREPOSTEROUS

Preposterous combines pre-, meaning “before” and post-, meaning “after.” To be preposterous is to be before the after, or all out of order, which is a preposterous state to be in.

Billy Muir gives new meaning to the term “side hustle.” The 67-year-old grandfather from Scotland’s Orkney Islands has 20 different jobs—sheep farmer, firefighter, electrician, garbage collector, and airport worker, to name a few. To acknowledge his industrious spirit, BBC News reports, the Pride of Britain presented Muir with an award Monday evening (October 31), honoring him as “Britain’s hardest–working man.”

Orkney sheep farmer hailed as Britain’s “hardest working man” https://t.co/KaRNpIOgTz pic.twitter.com/Ykh88fhwWB

— The Scotsman (@TheScotsman) November 1, 2016

The Daily Mirror and TSB Bank host the annual awards ceremony, which is billed as an event that spotlights “truly remarkable people who make the world a better place.” Members of the public nominate candidates, and winners are announced at a star-studded ceremony held in early November.

Muir was presented with a “Community Partner” award, given to individuals or a group of people who selflessly work to improve their local community. According to STV News, Muir was “very, very surprised” to learn the news. “I never in my wildest dreams expected anything like this to happen to me,” he told the outlet.

Muir lives on the island of North Ronaldsay, which, due its small size, has a tight-knit community and labor force. Inhabitants work together to keep the island running smoothly, but Muir goes above and beyond. 

“I’ve often wondered where the island would be if he didn’t do all those jobs,” Muir’s wife, Isobel, told The Scotsman. “He contributes so much to everything that goes on. It’s an ageing population and he’s one of the people that’s still strong and fit enough to do all this work.”

Muir has served his community for decades. He has worked as the North Ronaldsay lighthouse keeper for nearly 50 years, and he’s been a fireman for more than 30.

“It’s made me very happy, and it keeps me fit,” Muir told The Scotsman. “As long as I keep fit and healthy I’ve got no plans to retire.”

[h/t BBC News]

The Pentagon, home to the U.S. Department of Defense, is a remarkable building—and has been since ground was broken on its Arlington, Virginia site 75 years ago, on September 11, 1941. Within three months, the U.S. would declare war on Germany, Italy, Japan, and their allies, and by 1945 the Pentagon would be home to the most powerful military in the world.

1. IT’S SIMPLY ENORMOUS.

Okay, you know this already, but how big is enormous? About 6.6 million square feet. More than 17 miles of corridors. A five-acre central plaza. It’s only 77 feet above ground (five stories), but each of its five sides is 921 feet long, which means a lap around the outside of the building is almost a mile, which may make it easier to understand why in the early years—before there were telephones at every desk, and before email—some messengers took to the hallways on roller skates. When finished in 1943, the Pentagon became the largest office building in the world, and it’s still one of the biggest.

2. THEY BUILT IT FAST.

Because it was built in sections, by the end of April 1942—a mere eight months after the first batch of concrete was poured—employees were moving in. On January 15, 1943, thanks to a multiple-shift, 24-hour-a-day construction schedule, it was complete.

3. THE PENTAGON’S ARCHITECTS COULDN’T KEEP UP WITH CONSTRUCTION.

There was such pressure to build quickly—there was simply not enough office space for the thousands of military personnel flooding into Washington after Pearl Harbor—that construction on parts of the building often began before blueprints and other design documents were finished, despite there being about 1000 architects designing the building onsite.

4. IT’S MOSTLY MADE OF CONCRETE. 

It seems fitting that the choice of building material for the Pentagon was informed by a war shortage. Because of World War II, which had been going on in Europe for two years before construction began, steel was in short supply. Because steel is needed to build high, the Pentagon was designed to be short. The primary building material? Concrete, comprised, in part, of 680,000 tons of sand and gravel from the Potomac. Also absent, until recently—elevators, because you need steel to make them. Now, thanks to a massive renovation project, there are 70 of them.

5. IT’S FIVE-SIDED BECAUSE THAT WAS THE SHAPE OF ITS ORIGINAL SITE.

The first site chosen for the building was Arlington Farms, which was pentagon-shaped. But planners figured out that the building would block the view of Washington from nearby Arlington National Cemetery. So another site was chosen (where Hoover Field used to be). By this time, planning was so far advanced that the shape couldn’t be changed. Also, President Roosevelt liked the design—an important factor in keeping the original layout. “I like it because nothing like it has ever been done that way before,” Roosevelt said of the design.

6. THE PENTAGON SHAPE WAS ALSO EFFICIENT.

“Like a circle, a pentagon would create shorter walking distances within the building—30 to 50 percent less than in a rectangle, architects calculated—but its lines and walls would be straight and, therefore, much easier to build,” wrote Steve Vogel in Washington Post Magazine. In theory, at least, it takes no longer than six minutes to walk between any two spots in the building. According to Vogel, the shape also proved conducive to optimal use of space and utilities, such as electricity and plumbing.

7. IT ALMOST HAD SEGREGATED BATHROOMS.

As specified by Virginia state law regarding segregation in public buildings at the time it was built, the Pentagon almost had segregated bathrooms and eating areas. But President Franklin D. Roosevelt had, in June 1941, outlawed discrimination in the defense industry with Executive Order 8802. After Roosevelt visited the partially-completed building in 1942 and noticed a surfeit of bathrooms (284 in all), he may have insisted that there be no separation according to race. This was only one of a number of racial issues that surfaced during construction, according to Snopes. 

8. ANTIWAR PROTESTERS TRIED TO LEVITATE THE BUILDING.

The year was 1967, and passions against the U.S. military presence in Vietnam were running high. Thousands of protesters marched to the Pentagon, and, as part of a dramatic “exorcism,” tried to lift it off the ground. The attempt failed, because—to begin with, 680,000 tons of sand.

According to Arthur Magazine’s oral history of the event, in the planning stages, military representatives negotiated with the protest leaders, and came to a compromise regarding the liftoff: they could only raise the building three feet, not 22, as originally planned. The military was concerned that lifting it higher would cause major structural damage.

9. IT INCLUDED A SECRET APARTMENT.

In order to save time during the construction phase, apartments were built onsite for supervisors, and even after completion, one remained. After Captain Robert Furman discovered that his former digs—a small, windowless apartment in the Ordnance Department office bay—remained, he used it to save on hotel expenses during his post-construction visits to Washington. Eventually, higher-ups caught on, and the secret hideaway was dismantled. During his stays there, office workers would see him suddenly emerge with his suitcase, but remained clueless as to why.  “They all wondered what was in that room,” he said.

Love it or hate it, sleep is an essential (and substantial) part of your life. When we don’t get enough rest, we start to break down—and so do our eating habits. A new meta-analysis [PDF] published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that sleep-deprived people ate hundreds more calories per day than they did when they were well-rested.

Researchers at King’s College London pulled data from 11 different sleep and eating studies on a total of 172 people. All of the studies involved an experimental group, in which people were kept awake for part of the night, and a control group, whose participants were allowed to get the sleep they needed. The participants’ energy intake—that is, how much they ate—and output (any physical exertion) were then tracked for the next 24 hours.

Unsurprisingly, sleep-deprived people did not exercise more than the well-rested. But they did eat more, averaging 385 calories over their typical daily intake. They weren’t just any calories, either; participants specifically sought out foods high in fat and protein. Their carbohydrate intake did not change.

What was behind these snoozy munchies? The research team can’t say for sure. Previous studies point to two potential culprits: our brains and our hormones. One 2013 report found that the brains of sleep-deprived people responded more urgently to pictures of fattening food, inspiring cravings even when the participants were full. And even as their snack-lust peaked, the participants experienced a drop in activity in the region of the brain associated with careful decision-making. They really didn’t stand a chance.

Other experiments have found that sleep deprivation can lead to an imbalance in the so-called hunger hormones leptin and ghrelin, which can trick the body into believing that it’s starving.

The takeaway from the latest study, say its authors, is that weight gain is complicated. Diet and exercise are crucial factors, but they don’t operate in a vacuum.

“Reduced sleep is one of the most common and potentially modifiable health risks in today’s society in which chronic sleep loss is becoming more common,” senior author Gerda Pot said in a statement. “More research is needed to investigate the importance of long-term, partial sleep deprivation as a risk factor for obesity and whether sleep extension could play a role in obesity prevention.”

What’s more awkward than a performance review at work? The self-appraisal process that precedes it, of course.

Measuring your own performance without coming across as arrogant or too self-deprecating can be an incredibly hard tightrope to walk. Studies have shown that we’re remarkably poor judges of our own work, and no one can remember what they did six months ago, anyway. All the more reason to dash it off in the five minutes before it’s due, right?

Nope, says New York-based career consultant Maggie Mistal. The frenetic nature of today’s workforce means your words carry an outsize amount of weight. “With managers having so much on their plates, many use the self-assessments as the basis for the employee’s performance evaluation,” Mistal says. Your boss can’t possibly keep track of all your victories (or setbacks). That means they might reference your self-assessment when deciding on your next raise or who on the team should land the next promotion.

If the stakes for your self-assessment seem high, it’s because they are. But there are some easy steps you can take to make sure you’re showing off your best self—without seeming like a braggart.

1. ADD JUICY DETAILS.

Now is not the time for modesty, says Mistal. When recounting your successes, details matter. To avoid staring blankly at your screen for 45 minutes, keep a running list, saved on your desktop, of projects completed and goals accomplished throughout the year. Then, when it’s time to turn that list into assessment material, Mistal recommends following a Position-Action-Result template. Identify what role you played, what action you took, and the details of the positive outcome. For example, rather than noting that you “oversaw the website redesign” you can point to the four-person team you managed for the two-month project, and the 25 percent traffic bump the redesign helped reel in.

2. BE (CAREFULLY) HONEST.

You shouldn’t ignore mistakes or failures, but be sure to frame them appropriately. Rather than saying, “I fell short” or “I failed,” flip your language to create solution-based statements. The Harvard Business Review recommends framing it as, “Here’s an area I want to work on”—then spell out what you’re going to do. Most employers will favor that kind of growth mentality, and crafting your own game plan for growth can actually earn you bonus points in the performance review.

3. DON’T COMPLAIN.

Now is not the time for disparaging remarks about your company or its leaders—save that stuff for happy hour with your BFF. Instead, the self-assessment should include an appreciation of what’s working in your job, Mistal says, even if that means digging deep to find a team dynamic that’s working. And, like with your mistakes, invert the negatives to create a more productive conversation. “Rather than say that you want to be promoted out of a department with little upward mobility, make it more empowering,” says Mistal. “Say you’re motivated and make your best contributions when your efforts lead to greater roles.”

4. GET A SECOND OPINION.

Discussing self-assessments with trusted colleagues can be good for everyone. Your work pal might jog your memory about a project-saving move that you’ve forgotten, or a team member might point out that your can-do attitude isn’t exactly the norm at the office. Those swapped compliments can be great details for the self-assessment, but don’t limit yourself to just talk. “Having another pair of eyes read over what you’ve written never hurts,” Mistal says. Because, just like with a resume or cover letter, a typo can be glaring for reviewers.

For all the time Americans spend complaining about sad desk lunches, after-hours emails, and unused vacation days, our workload is surprisingly light. As Inc. reports, the average U.S. worker spends just 39 percent of their clocked-in hours on actual work, but employee laziness isn’t necessarily to blame.

That number comes from Workfront’s latest U.S. State of Enterprise Work Report which surveyed over 600 people employed by large companies. The percentage of time respondents said they dedicated to job tasks in 2016 is down from the 46 percent they reported last year. So what’s causing the severe drop in productivity? It’s tempting to blame the tweets, quizzes, and cat GIFs constantly at our fingertips for distracting employees. And past research has shown that slacking off does contribute to missing time in the workday—but only about 30 to 60 minutes of it. According to Workfront’s report, the biggest distractions employees face are actually coming from up top.

Workers surveyed reported spending 21 percent of their days in meetings (half of which they didn’t find productive) and 16 percent answering emails. So even when employees want to get work done, they still have to deal with managers interrupting them throughout the day.

While our work hours are becoming less productive, they’re also growing longer: The average amount of time spent at the office increased from 44.3 hours in 2015 to 45.1 hours in 2016. Thankfully there are alternatives for workers determined to make better use of their precious time. Working from home is becoming more widely accepted and, as you might suspect, remote employees get more done and feel happier overall.

[h/t Inc.]

“Call me mint jelly, because I’m on the lam!”

The fact that there’s no B at the end of that particular lam suggests that the origin of “being on the lam”—that is, on the run from the law—doesn’t lie down on the farm. So where does this bizarre expression come from?

The phrase on the lam first emerged in the late 19th century as to do a lam, a slang expression defined in an 1897 article in Popular Science as simply “to run.” (Alongside it, we’re told Victorian criminals were already taking kips when they fell asleep, were rubbernecking when listening in on others’ conversations, and would give longwinded spiels instead of speeches). But by the turn of the century, to do a lam had morphed into to go on the lam, which first began to crop up in print in the early 1900s and has remained unchanged ever since.

As a verb in its own right, however, lam dates back as far as the late 16th century. The Oxford English Dictionary has unearthed it in a dictionary compiled in the mid-1590s (alongside a long-lost equivalent form, belam), but back then the word’s meaning was considerably different: in 16th century English, to lam meant “to beat” or “to thrash someone harshly.”

In that sense, lam is probably a distant cousin of lame (and so might have originally implied beating someone to the point of injury) and actually still survives in the word lambaste, which today means “to scold” or “castigate,” but back in the 17th century also meant “to beat.” Precisely where the word came from before then, however, is a mystery, but it’s possible that lam has Scandinavian ancestors and could be descended from an Old Norse word, lemja, meaning “to beat” or “strike.” But no matter what its earliest origins might be, how did we get from beating someone to running away from the law?

Lam survived in this original sense until the 19th century when, having steadily fallen out of everyday use, it began to crop up in the schoolyard slang of British (and later American) schoolchildren. By the mid-1800s, lamming out or lamming into someone was being widely used in reference to schoolyard fights and scuffles, and it’s perhaps through association with schoolboys running away before they were caught fighting by their teachers (or else, with the hapless victim running away before the first blow was thrown) that lamming finally came to be used to mean “to escape” or “to abscond.”

In this sense, lam first appeared in print on its own in 1886, in Allan Pinkerton’s memoir Thirty Years A Detective. In it, Pinkerton—the Scotland-born founder of Chicago’s renowned Pinkerton National Detective Agency—describes in detail the precise operations of a pickpocketing gang:

“After selecting their victim or ‘mark,’ who is engaged in drawing a large sum of money from the bank, one of the number will take up his position inside the bank, where he can watch every movement of the man who is to be robbed … Quick as a flash, and yet with an ease of motion that attracts no particular attention, the ‘tool’ turns sideways, almost facing the man, but upon his right side. The ‘tool’ usually carries a coat upon his arm for the purpose of covering his hand; with the concealed hand he will work under the man’s coat, and taking the wallet or package by the top, will raise it straight up, until it is entirely clear of the pocket; then drawing it under his own coat, the robbery is complete … If he is rather slow about getting to the wallet or the money and he notices that the front men [two other members of the same gang] are getting somewhat uneasy, he calls out ‘stick!’ This means that in a few seconds he will be successful, and that they are to stay in their respective positions. After he has secured the wallet he will chirp like a bird, or will utter the word ‘lam!’ This means to let the man go, and to get out of the way as soon as possible. This word is also used in case the money cannot be taken, and further attempts are useless.”

It’s from here that phrases like doing a lam eventually emerged in the later 1880s, and criminals have been going on the lam ever since.

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