Torn six ways to Sunday
 

Any idea of the exact meaning of this expression? :thinking:

Derivation? (How it came about?)

Examples (googling it),

Those claims have been torn six ways to Sunday by anyone who knows climate research and research terminology...

Throughout this affair, the judges themselves were torn six ways to Sunday, but in the end there's always this incredible undefinable reality that truth and light is...

I get the idea of being either confused or invalidated... But a good authoritative opinion will be appreciated!

Leave off 'torn' and you have the expression.

'Six ways to Sunday' or 'six ways from Sunday' means 'every way possible', 'in every conceivable way', 'in every direction/all directions', 'every which way', thoroughly' and 'completely'.

Look here for other possibilities.

Awesome, Rusty!
Thanks a lot!

Just for future reference, there is also an interesting discussion about a similar expression here. :)

Thank you very much AdA!
(Good thread.)

I've never heard the expression, by the way. The BNC (=BrE) gives no hits, but COCA (=AmE) has 14, so it seems to be an AmE expression. I wonder where it came from.

Well, the link Rusty provided gives several hypotheses, saying that it is used on a regional basis in America, England, Australia, and other predominantly English-speaking countries...

I'd think it may have been originally coined at a verbal level, not finding its way into the BNC, but I am just guessing.

Someone should take full responsibility and research this matter six ways to Sunday and come up with a fully authoritative answer...

(I'd bet it was the Canterbury Archdeacon who said it once while drinking tea...) (But I wouldn't bet much, honestly.) :rolleyes:

Possibly, but the link is to an exclusively American website, and my guess is that scattered knowledge of it has resulted from the film of that title. As far as I can see, this is a totally unkown expression in the UK apart from that connection. :)

Where is PJT when you need him?

Yeah, I have that question too...

(By the way, good edit in quoting me!) :rolleyes: :D