Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Idioms 278. The idiom today is heads will
roll. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. If someone says that heads will
roll, it means that those that are responsible for failure or wrongdoing
will be severely punished. It will be very seriously punished. All right. Let's continue.
It often implies. That someone will be fired. Yeah. Usually when we hear it
nowadays, they say heads are going to roll. I mean that probably a number of people
may be fired for whatever, whatever bad thing happened. Let's continue. This idiom
alludes to the idea in former times when people were punished for some crimes,
some were literally decapitated. They really cut their head off. Okay.
Of course. The image is of a rolling head. So after the head got cut off. Maybe
whatever it was cut off from , it may fall and roll on the ground. So of course the
images of a rolling head after it has been kind of off. Let's continue. The
earliest example of its use , dates back to 1858 in the newspaper, " The Indiana
Herald. " However many people believe the term was popularized by Hitler. So Hitler
made it you know , made it more famous. Hitler himself. Here is his quote. "If our
movement is successful, there will be a Revolutionary Tribunal which will punish
the crimes of November 1918 . " I think he's talking about a reference to ... there were
the agreement after World War one where you know Germany was blamed for World
War one and they had to pay a lot of very high taxes for war reparations. And
that's what eventually led to Germany going into hyperinflation. And because
Germany went into hyperinflation and you know, the economy totally kind of went
haywire or collapsed that's what led to Hitler being elected. So that's what
he means here." Then decapitated heads will roll" So whoever agreed to that or
you know, finally agreed to that if they caused us to go through all this chaos.
Those heads are going to roll. All right. Anyway we have three examples to show
how we use it today. Example number one. Once we discover who is responsible for
the scandal, heads will roll. Well people will be fired. Or number two. When the
boss is informed about what happened here. Heads will roll or heads are going to
roll. So again a number of people are going to be fired. Okay and the last one we
have here. If we lose this contract, heads will roll. Yeah. Maybe there's a very
important contract to the company. So if they lose it , you know , some, some people
are going to get fired. Okay. Anyway, I hope you got it. I hope it was clear. I hope it was
informative. Thank you for your time. Bye- bye.