Do you have a relative, friend, co-worker who are prone to occasional explosive over-reactions? Have you ever seen your Uncle Joe’s mood swing from calm and cheerful to furious and enraged in the blink of an eye?  Such mood swings are sometimes described as flying off the handle.

The phrase generally refers to an intemperate and often hurtful outburst by someone who has, in a moment of frustration or anger, lost control of their emotions. The metaphor of a mood swing is apt, given that the idiom appears to have originated in this country in the 1800’s, inspired by the image of a loose axe head that would launch unpredictably from its handle when swung. According to our friends at Merriam-Webster, “When an axe head was poorly fitted to its handle, or when the wood had dried and shrunk, a hard swing could send the metal head flying free of the handle entirely. For anyone in the vicinity of a lumberjack with a loose axe, this was not a theoretical concern. A spinning blade of iron departing at speed in an unpredictable direction has a way of focusing the mind. The vivid danger of that image made it natural material for metaphor.”

Gingersoftware.com reports that “The expression was first seen in print in 1834, in Thomas C. Haliburton’s The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England: ‘He flies right off the handle for nothing.’” Axe heads and people were presumably flying off the handle for a long time before Haliburton published the line, but I could not find a more plausible origin story for this particular metaphor.

In the shop or in the woods, it’s good practice to inspect the fit between handle and axe-head. The same is true for other striking tools. If a hammer head is loose, you’re well advised to replace the handle or secure it with a wedge or two. No one benefits from having a one-pound unguided missile flying through the shop. If you’ve had that experience once, you remember it vividly and don’t want to repeat it.

As easy as it is to correct the poorly-fitting axe- or hammer head, it’s much harder to repair Uncle Joe. True, he might have a screw loose somewhere, but he and the people around him really should invest some time and effort in trying to understand those outbursts. The same would apply to Aunt Josephine if she’s the bomb thrower.  Almost surely, telling them to calm down will not help, and could easily make matters worse. Just as you would in the shop, it might be smart to put some distance between yourself and the danger. Better still you should find someone with the right skills to address the problem, either with counseling or medication.

If you are the one with the problem, bear in mind the quote from the Guilded Age journalist Ambrose Bierce: “Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”