# Nobody can make heads or tails of it / head or tail



## igma

Hi 

Does the expression above mean that nobody understands anything about it?
thank you


----------



## Hermione Golightly

_'Does the expression above mean that nobody understands anything about  it?'
_
Yes, it does.


Hermione


----------



## igma

thank you very much


----------



## Kumpel

I'd say _"No one can make head nor tail of it."_

Sing. _head _& _tail_, and _nor _instead of _or_.

Lloyd


----------



## igma

Then who is right? 

It looks to me that the last answer is the most proper one.

thaNK you


----------



## ewie

I prefer _head nor tail_ too, Igma ... but I'm fairly sure I've heard _heads or tails_ and _head or tail _too ~ it's quite common in *speech* where absolute precision doesn't matter all that much.  If I was *writing* it, I'd definitely write _head nor tail_


----------



## Kumpel

My Grandma, 77 and lived in NW England all her life, says _"head nor tail."
_


----------



## Kumpel

> Originally posted on *Answers.com*:
> Also  *can't make heads or tails of*.  Fail to  understand, be quite confused about, as in *I can't make head or tail  of these directions*.  A version of this term dates back to Roman  times, when Cicero wrote *Ne caput nec pedes* ("neither head nor  feet") to describe confusion.  In the current idiom the precise allusion  is unclear:  *head* and *tail* may mean top and bottom,  beginning and end, or the two sides of a coin.  [Second  half of 1600s]


----------



## jonmaz

ewie said:


> I prefer _head nor tail_ too, Igma ... but I'm fairly sure I've heard _heads or tails_ and _head or tail _too ~ it's quite common in *speech* where absolute precision doesn't matter all that much. If I was *writing* it, I'd definitely write _head nor tail_


 


Igma

My experience is very simillar to ewie's.


----------



## Loob

I'm with Kumpel, ewie and jonmaz: my preference is for
_I can't make head nor tail of it_
_No-one can make head nor tail of it_
_etc._

It's an idiom, which I suppose is how it gets away with the double negative


----------



## Kumpel

On http://audiolatinproverbs.blogspot.com/2007/08/nec-caput-nec-pedes-habet.html, it says "I can't make heads or tails out of it."


----------



## panjandrum

Another "head nor tail of it" report.  I haven't heard the other version.

Perhaps "can't make heads or tails of it" results from confusion between "can't make head nor tail of it", which may sound odd to some, and the very common "heads or tails" call relating to the toss of a coin.


----------



## iskndarbey

"Heads or tails" is, in my experience, the much more common usage in American English. All those who are referencing "head nor tail" so far seem to be British/Irish/Australian.


----------



## lablady

Chiming in to agree with iskndarbey's observation. It's _heads or tails_ for me, also.


----------



## kalamazoo

I concur.  I would say "heads or tails."


----------



## jonmaz

I too use the phrase "heads or tails" when discussing alternatives which have roughly equal chances.  

However this thread is about -

*"Nobody can make heads or tails of it"* 

and whether it means that "nobody understands anything about it."

In that particular scenario, it would be not unreasonable to say, "Nobody can make head nor tail of it".


----------



## Hermione Golightly

I would say "I can't make head nor tail of this" except I doubt I ever use the expression, not, I hasten to add, because I understand everything, but because I happen to prefer others with similar meaning.  I need to use them with ever increasing frequency these days 

Igma, you asked a simple question, what "Nobody can make heads or tails of it" means. We don't know why you asked and I supposed you were doing one of those exercises where you have to explain what sayings mean. It might seem that every possible comment has already been made about the saying in the form it was given.
But there's one more thing: I wonder how many people would use the saying in a sentence starting with any subject other than"I". I certainly wouldn't say 
" _Nobody _can make .....". It reads just like a course book exercise, that ever so slightly unnatural sound to it. If you  had said you were thinking of writing it, I would have advised against.

Cheers
Hermione


----------



## Spira

panjandrum said:


> Another "head nor tail of it" report. I haven't heard the other version.
> 
> Perhaps "can't make heads or tails of it" results from confusion between "can't make head nor tail of it", which may sound odd to some, and the very common "heads or tails" call relating to the toss of a coin.


 
To me the confusion with tossing a coin is screaming out; and most of the answers to this thread would confirm that.


----------



## Hermione Golightly

> the confusion with tossing a coin is screaming out



Yes I agree, and I wonder if anybody might think it means being unable to make up one's mind about something.

Hermione


----------



## Loob

Spira said:


> To me the confusion with tossing a coin is screaming out; and most of the answers to this thread would confirm that.


I'm, in turn, confused by your comment, Spira: what we appear to have here is not confusion but just another AmE/BrE-IE-AusE difference.


----------



## Rover_KE

I've always said 'I can't make head or tail of it.'

And I'm too old to change now.

Rover


----------



## panjandrum

Loob said:


> I'm, in turn, confused by your comment, Spira: what we appear to have here is not confusion but just another AmE/BrE-IE-AusE difference.


You may be right about the geographical separation.  I was suggesting, earlier, that the source of the "heads or tails" version may have been replacement of the original "head nor tail", which several have said sounds odd, with the very much more familiar "heads or tails" collation.


----------



## Spira

Loob said:


> I'm, in turn, confused by your comment, Spira: what we appear to have here is not confusion but just another AmE/BrE-IE-AusE difference.


 
Without re-reading all the posts, I have not noticed any marked national differences, just a general one between the coin-tossers  and the grammatically correct.


----------



## Loob

panjandrum said:


> You may be right about the geographical separation. I was suggesting, earlier, that the source of the "heads or tails" version may have been replacement of the original "head nor tail", which several have said sounds odd, with the very much more familiar "heads or tails" collation.


Oh I wasn't confused by your "confusion", panj, I was confused by Spira's "confusion". I'm sure you're right about the source. Interestingly, the OED has 'head'/'tail' of a coin as the older version of 'heads'/'tails'.




(I'm assuming Spira's post 23 is a joke, or I'd be confused by that too.)


----------



## sound shift

Rover_KE said:


> I've always said 'I can't make head or tail of it.'
> 
> And I'm too old to change now.
> 
> Rover


Ditto, even though I'm younger than Rover.


----------



## Spira

(I'm assuming Spira's post 23 is a joke, or I'd be confused by that too.) 

My comment - not too complicated I would have hoped - was not a joke, even though I did find the term _coin-tossers_ amusing.
I was just trying to say that the confusion between heads-or-tails and head-nor-tail appears to me to be one of understanding of the expression, rather than one based on geographical location.
That was all.


----------



## igma

Sorry If I haven´t thanked  you all for your great help but this is  an English class more than a thread so it´s taking me a while to digest so much information 


thank you


----------



## lablady

Spira said:


> I was just trying to say that the confusion between heads-or-tails and head-nor-tail appears to me to be one of understanding of the expression, rather than one based on geographical location.


 
I can't speak for the other AE posters, but I can say for myself that there is no confusion as to the meaning of the phrase. I see I made the obviously incorrect assumption that even if I abbreviated the phrase down to the small part that is in question that it would be understood, since the subject of the thread was the complete phrase. My mistake. Sorry. 

To make it clearer, the phrase I hear and would use as a speaker of AE is: _Nobody can make heads or tails out of it_, or _I can't make heads or tails out of it_. It means I can't understand it; it's not a coin-tossing/decision-making confusion.


----------



## giovannino

Loob said:


> what we appear to have here is not confusion but just another AmE/BrE-IE-AusE difference.


 
John Algeo's corpus-based description of BE/AE differences, _British or American English?, _agrees with you, Loob:

_*head or tail, make *Make heads or tails: CIC [Cambridge International Corpus] British texts have only the singular; American texts have only the plural_

Also, the British learner's dictionaries I checked only have _can't make head or/nor tail of something, _whereas the Cambridge Dictionary of American English only has _make heads or tails of._

There is also an interesting discussion here


----------



## kalamazoo

I agree completely with lablady.  As an AmE speaker, my understanding of the general phrase is that it means something you can't make sense of, but I would say "I couldn't make heads or tails of it."


----------



## Spira

lablady said:


> I can't speak for the other AE posters, but I can say for myself that there is no confusion as to the meaning of the phrase. I see I made the obviously incorrect assumption that even if I abbreviated the phrase down to the small part that is in question that it would be understood, since the subject of the thread was the complete phrase. My mistake. Sorry.
> 
> To make it clearer, the phrase I hear and would use as a speaker of AE is: _Nobody can make heads or tails out of it_, or _I can't make heads or tails out of it_. It means I can't understand it; it's not a coin-tossing/decision-making confusion.


 
My word, I'm obviously losing my English, as no-one (especially Loob) seems to understand what I say 
Whether you are a heads-and-tails sayer or a head-nor-tail sayer, the meaning is identical (yes, kalamazoo). 
My entire discussion is about the use of the one or of the other.
Whoever mentioned decision-making ?


----------



## Cagey

Spira said:


> [....]
> I was just trying to say that the confusion between heads-or-tails and  head-nor-tail appears to me to be one of *understanding of the  expression*, rather than one based on geographical location.
> That was all.


It is natural to interpret this as a reference to understanding  the _meaning_ of the idiom. If you intended "understanding" to  refer to something else, it would have been better to make that explicit.


----------



## cuchuflete

Rover_KE said:


> I've always said 'I can't make head or tail of it.'
> 
> And I'm too old to change now.
> 
> Rover



I'm a bit younger, but equally set in my AE ways, which seem at variance with the huge (is it 3 or 4 or 5 people?) and therefore statistically lumpy sample of left-ponders.

I have always heard and said, _I_ _can't make head *n*or tail of it.

_Singular and _nor_.  The meaning is as stated many times above:  I can't understand it.
Perhaps the differences among AE speakers are regional.


----------



## Loob

Giovannino's link seems to indicate there's some variation in AmE usage - here's a neighbour of cuchu's speaking: 





> Ailsa said...
> Huh. I grew up in New England (Maine, to be precise), and I learned it as "can't make head nor tail of it."


I also thought the link's discussion on the "underlying metaphor" was interesting, particularly this remark:





> I don't know what the origin of the phrase is, I'm afraid. The OED considers it to have derived from _head or tail_ to mean 'one thing or another', which goes back at least to 1651. Now that meaning is always in the phrase "not make head(s) (n)or tail(s) of", but the first quotation for that actual phrase is 1729. None of that helps us know whether it's about animals or coins, since the sense of _head_ and _tail_ relating to coins goes back into the 17th century too.
> 
> So, we don't know. And it could be the case that when the phrase was populari{s/z}ed, there were people then just as today who had different ideas about the underlying metaphor!


----------



## cuchuflete

Spira said:


> (I'm assuming Spira's post 23 is a joke, or I'd be confused by that too.)
> 
> My comment - not too complicated I would have hoped - was not a joke, even though I did find the term _coin-tossers_ amusing.
> I was just trying to say that the confusion between heads-or-tails and head-nor-tail appears to me to be one of understanding of the expression, rather than one based on geographical location.
> That was all.



That doesn't hold water.  (1) There is no "confusion between..." the various forms of the expression.  Some people prefer one, while others hold a different prefence or habit.  Nobody appears confused.   (2) The understanding of the expression appears uniform among all participants in the thread.

Now if someone were to tell us that the expression means that a coin is on its edge, rather than one side or the other, or that they think they are on horseback, neither at the head nor tail end of the critter, that would qualify as a confused interpretation.


----------



## Kumpel

To say that a coin is on it's side does make sense, however.
It is neither *head nor tail*, ie. has not landed with either side facing upwards.
If the terms _heads _and _tails _were originally _head _and _tail_, respectively, then this stands as a perfectly understandable etymology, leaving _head nor tail_ as the correct*/original.

*I say correct in full knowledge of that fact that both are 'correct.' I see it as correct, in the same way as I see 'English English' as correct.

Lloyd


----------



## jonmaz

I think we have cracked it!

"Head nor tail" involves a one coin on edge.
"Heads or tails" involves multiple coins on edge.

More seriously. the "correct" version obviously is the one commonly used in the environment we were brought up in.  (or in which we were brought up!)


----------



## Spira

Cagey said:


> It is natural to interpret this as a reference to understanding the _meaning_ of the idiom. If you intended "understanding" to refer to something else, it would have been better to make that explicit.


 
You are right, Cagey. I was talking about understanding the origins of the expression, and the real significance of the words being pronounced, not about the interpretation (= meaning) of the expression. On that there is no confusion. As you say, I should have been more explicit.


----------



## Spira

cuchuflete said:


> That doesn't hold water. (1) There is no "confusion between..." the various forms of the expression. Some people prefer one, while others hold a different prefence or habit. Nobody appears confused. (2) The understanding of the expression appears uniform among all participants in the thread.
> 
> Now if someone were to tell us that the expression means that a coin is on its edge, rather than one side or the other, or that they think they are on horseback, neither at the head nor tail end of the critter, that would qualify as a confused interpretation.


 
Just confusion in the sense that one of the groups is mistaken in their choice of words.  As a parallel, I have a friend who always says "what's going down?" when he should probabaly choose "what's going on?". I call that a confusion in his language. Not in his meaning.


----------



## iskndarbey

Spira said:


> Just confusion in the sense that one of the groups is mistaken in their choice of words.  As a parallel, I have a friend who always says "what's going down?" when he should probabaly choose "what's going on?". I call that a confusion in his language. Not in his meaning.



What makes you think anybody is mistaken or confused about anything? Are Americans also mistaken about using napkins and trucks and diapers and elevators?


----------



## Pardalote

The correct expression has to be either, "nobody (or no-one) can make heads or tails of it",  or, "one can make neither heads nor tails of it".  

In general use however, in my experience, it has always been "I (you) can't (one cannot, no-one can) make heads or tails of it".   

Meaning, "I can't tell whether this represents heads or tails", it is impossible to make sense of it.


----------



## Spira

iskndarbey said:


> What makes you think anybody is mistaken or confused about anything? Are Americans also mistaken about using napkins and trucks and diapers and elevators?


 
I have already pointed out that I don't think this case is one of geographical differences. As many Brits say the one or the other, and I dare say it is the same elsewhere. This is not a "nationality" issue.
It's a question of comprehending exactly the words coming out of one's mouth.

If someone said "it's all water under the dam", wouldn't you say he confused his words? And yet you would understand what he was trying to say.


----------



## Spira

Pardalote said:


> The correct expression has to be either, "nobody (or no-one) can make heads or tails of it", or, "one can make neither heads nor tails of it".
> 
> In general use however, in my experience, it has always been "I (you) can't (one cannot, no-one can) make heads or tails of it".
> 
> Meaning, "I can't tell whether this represents heads or tails", it is impossible to make sense of it.


 
Or, of course, *head nor tail*


----------



## iskndarbey

Oh well, in that case, I can't make neither head nor tail of the heads and tails.


----------



## Pardalote

Spira said:


> Or, of course, *head nor tail*


 
 Yes, of course, somehow the brackets I put in around these words failed to transmit.

My pioint is just that, to be correct, we must say [either / or] or  [neither / nor].  

I don't think it matters whether the singular or the plural is used.


----------



## Pardalote

iskndarbey said:


> Oh well, in that case, I can't make neither head nor tail of the heads and tails.


 


Double negatives seem to be popular in this thread. 

Surely you mean, "... in that case, I_ can't_ make _either_ head or tail of the heads and tails".

Or, "... in that case I _can_ make _neither _head nor tail of the heads and tails".


----------



## kalamazoo

I think Spira is the one who is confused, or who at least seems to think there is some obvious mistake in "heads or tails."

In AmE,if you flip a coin, you ask someone to call "heads" or "tails."  (If I call heads andthe coin lands with the front side up,  I win the toss.)  So I wonder if "heads or tails" is really even a true plural.  In any case, it's an idiom and it seems rather ridiculous to say that one version is "mistaken" especially when the origin is obscure to begin with.  You might as well argue over whether it is more correct to say it's raining "cats and dogs" or "dogs and cats."  It's a fixed idiom which has a meaning different from the literal meaning.


----------



## Spira

kalamazoo said:


> I think Spira is the one who is confused, or who at least seems to think there is some obvious mistake in "heads or tails."
> 
> In AmE,if you flip a coin, you ask someone to call "heads" or "tails." (If I call heads andthe coin lands with the front side up, I win the toss.) So I wonder if "heads or tails" is really even a true plural. In any case, it's an idiom and it seems rather ridiculous to say that one version is "mistaken" especially when the origin is obscure to begin with. You might as well argue over whether it is more correct to say it's raining "cats and dogs" or "dogs and cats." It's a fixed idiom which has a meaning different from the literal meaning.


 
I'm finding this thread unbelivably frustrating. Everything I say is misinterpreted. I have to think it must be me 

Some people say heads-or-tails, others say head-or-tail. They both mean the same thing. I see no strict geographical division. They appear to have two different origins (the singular being the older of the two and referring to the impossibility of distinguishing the head from the tail of a creature, the plural being a reference to coin-tossing) , and some people go down one path and others down the other. Grammatically speaking, the singular version appears more correct.


----------



## Cagey

> Grammatically speaking, the singular  version appears more correct.


This is the statement being challenged.  I don't think people are misunderstanding you. I think they are disagreeing with your definition of "correct".


----------



## Nunty

Spira said:


> I'm finding this thread unbelivably frustrating. Everything I say is misinterpreted. I have to think it must be me
> 
> Some people say heads-or-tails, others say head-or-tail. They both mean the same thing. I see no strict geographical division. They appear to have two different origins (the singular being the older of the two and referring to the impossibility of distinguishing the head from the tail of a creature, the plural being a reference to coin-tossing) , and some people go down one path and others down the other. Grammatically speaking, the singular version appears more correct.


Grammatically speaking? Both turns of phrase are perfectly correct, grammatically speaking. They are idioms that are easily understood and perfectly correct in the appropriate setting.

Spira? I think the horse is already dead.


----------



## Kumpel

Loob said:


> Interestingly, the OED has 'head'/'tail' of a coin as the older version of 'heads'/'tails'.



Imagine this:
After a coin toss, neither heads nor tails is facing upwards. When this old version mentioned above was in use, one might have exclaimed: "I can make neither head nor tail of it." This then becomes the expression which we Brits all know and love.
As the terms for the faces of coins change over time (I don't know why), the expression which was originally based on these names also changes.
America(, unfortunately,) changes both the expression and the terms, but we Brits keep our good ol' money-related expression as it is, while still going with the flow on the changing of the names of the faces.

This is my guess.
If anyone can find out why head-tail became heads-tails, then that can explain the coins, but even without that, the expression can be explained as above.

Lloyd


----------



## Spira

Let me try to analyse literally (always remembering that they both mean the same thing):
I can make neither head nor tail of it = I cannot distinguish its head from its tail = I don't understand
I can't make heads or tails of it = I can't call which side is going to fall visible= nothing much at all.
But only if you really analyse it.................


----------



## Spira

> Spira? I think the horse is already dead.


 
Nice switch of pace, Nunty


----------



## kalamazoo

I don't think "making heads or tails of it" has anything to do with whether you can call heads or tails in advance, so I think Spira's interpretation of this expression is what is "confused."  Both versions mean that you can't distinguish whether it is one side of the coin or the other.  If someone flipped a coin and I couldn't see the result, I might ask "was it heads or tails" (meaning how did the coin land).  There's appareantly a recognized difference between AmE and BrE, as cited above. Spira's interpretation of the AmE variant of the expression seems incorrect to me. And I agree the horse has expired anyway.


----------



## Pardalote

Cagey said:


> This is the statement being challenged. I don't think people are misunderstanding you. I think they are disagreeing with your definition of "correct".


 
I agree with Spira. 

"I can't make heads or tails of it", is grammatically incorrect. 

Assuming the animal model. "I can't make either head or tail of it", makes perfect sense. Obviously, it means, "I can't _make out_ (discern or see) either its head or its tail". That is, I can't see where it begins or ends, can't see it clearly, can't make anything of (draw any concluions from) what I do see. In short, can't identify the object before me.

By contrast, given this model, "I can't make either heads or tails of it", makes no sense at all. No known animal has more than one head or one tail: and no known animal (or thing) can be converted into multiple heads or tails either. 

Not much sense can be made of this expression on the alternative model either. In a game of two-up or similar games where there are 
at least two coins in the air (and by assimilation also in the case of tossing a single coin) it makes perfect sense for the, "spinner", to ask, "heads or tails?", and for the players to call_,_ "heads", or, "tails", but there is virtually no probability of there being any occassion for saying, "I can't make heads or tails _of _it". 

"It", in this case would be the tossed coin(s) and the statement would imply either that the coin(s) had been thrown out of sight or that their marking were illegible or obscured in some way. The probability of that being the case is so small that it is unlikely that, "I can't make heads or tails of it", would have arisen in this context.

It seems probable to me that, "I can't make head or tail of it", which has the plain meaning given above on which we are all agreed, derives from the observation of animals (perhaps in a hunting context) and that it becomes,"heads or tails", (where it takes that form) by assimilation to the question raised by the, "spinner", in coin games. 

If that is accepted then Spiro is right. 

"I can't make head or tail of it", is a meaningful statement ifrom which a clear meaning can be inferred. There is no conflict between grammatical form and inferrable meaning and, accordingly, this is a statement in good or correct grammatical form.

"I can't make heads or tails of it", is generally understood to carry the same meaning but that meaning must be assumed (as a matter of usage). It cannot be inferred. In this case there_ is_ conflict between the grammatical form and the assumed intended meaning and, accordingly, this is a statement in poor or incorrect grammatical form.


----------



## Pardalote

kalamazoo said:


> I don't think "making heads or tails of it" has anything to do with whether you can call heads or tails in advance, so I think Spira's interpretation of this expression is what is "confused." Both versions mean that you can't distinguish whether it is one side of the coin or the other. *If someone flipped a coin and I couldn't see the result, I might ask "was it heads or tails" (meaning how did the coin land).* There's appareantly a recognized difference between AmE and BrE, as cited above. Spira's interpretation of the AmE variant of the expression seems incorrect to me. And I agree the horse has expired anyway.


 
Yes you might kalamazoo but what's the probability that your question would arise sufficiently often in a coin tossing context to give rise to the saying, "I can't make heads or tails of it?" (meaning, "I can't make it out, I don't understand").


----------



## Pardalote

Spira said:


> Let me try to analyse literally (always remembering that they both mean the same thing):
> I can make neither head nor tail of it = I cannot distinguish its head from its tail = I don't understand
> I can't make heads or tails of it = I can't call which side is going to fall visible= nothing much at all.
> But only if you really analyse it.................


 
I agree with your main point Spira that the plural form is incorrect, but I don't think the latter scenario has much explanatory force.  

Of course you could say, "I don't know which side is going to fall visible", but the whole point of a coin tossing game is that no-one can tell which side is going to be visible when it falls, so you are unlikely to do so.  In any case, "I can't make heads or tails of it", means, "I don't understand it", and that's a different matter entirely.


----------



## Forero

Where I live it's "can't make heads nor tails of it", "can't make heads or tails of it", or "can't make head nor tail of it". I hear all three and have always assumed the "heads nor tails" was the original and the others are easier ways to say it.

It means I can't make anything sensible out of it. All the forms are grammatical. (Is that the front of something or the back of it/them?)

_Heads_ might refer to multiple heads/fronts of something or to a coin or coins in the "heads" position. Similarly for _tails_. I can't make any of the above of it.


----------



## panjandrum

An important point has been missed, perhaps.
This expression, like second thought(s) or another think (thing) coming, is deeply engrained in the soul of its users.
It is not necessarily rational, and there is no point whatever in trying to persuade a "head nor tail" person to change to "heads or tails", or vice versa.
The thread has therefore been closed in the interests of


----------

