July 30, 1997

cut to the chase

Some online friends and I were wondering where the phrase "cut to the chase" originated. The best that we could come up with was that it had to do with movies, as in "cut to the chase scene" (get past the boring part). But looking up "chase" in the dictionary suggests that it might have to do with metalworking. What do you think?

I think that your best guess is the right one.

Cut to the chase, which means 'get to the point; get on with it; get down to business', is unquestionably a reference to chase scenes in action movies.

The literal use--as a director's instruction to go to a chase scene--is quite old. A 1929 novel about Hollywood has "Jannings escapes....Cut to chase," for example. The figurative use, which is now quite common, is fairly recent; it seems to date only from the early 1980s.

While there is a verb chase in metalworking, meaning 'to ornament (metal) by engraving' or 'to cut a screw thread with a chaser' (from French, ultimately related to the English word case), this is not connected to cut to the chase. The occurrence of cut and chase in the metalworking definition is coincidental.