Meaning:
To sleep very soundly.
Background:
To say that one feels tired enough to sleep on a clothesline seems like a
mere fanciful metaphorical way of saying one is extremely sleepy. No one
would expect you to actually balance on a line and the idea that the phrase
originated from such a literal event sets the folk-etymology alarm bells
ringing full pelt. Nevertheless, there are well attested stories that, during
the depression of the 1930s, destitute men did spent their nights hanging
over ropes which were strung across rooms for them to sleep on.
In Down and Out in Paris and London, 1933, George Orwell recorded a London
sleeping establishment, known as The Twopenny Hangover, with just such an
arrangement:
At the Twopenny Hangover, the lodgers sit in a row on a bench; there is a
rope in front of them, and they lean on this as though leaning over a
fence. A man, humorously called the valet, cuts the rope at five in the
morning. I have never been there myself, but Bozo had been there often. I
asked him whether anyone could possibly sleep in such an attitude, and he
said that it was more comfortable than it sounded - at any rate, better
than bare floor. There are similar shelters in Paris, but the charge there
is only twenty-five centimes (a halfpenny) instead of twopence.
...
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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Isn't this amazing?! The saying was once literal and people actually slept on
clothlines. Hard times aside, the idea sounds ingenious. In school, I used to
doze off at my desk while sitting on a stool, but at least I had a flat surface
to rest on. I'd never imagine a rope would do. Obviously people even managed to
sleep soundly on it but I wouldn't blame them if they woke up rude when the
valet cut the cord.
Pictures of a wierd format (hard to copy&paste) can be found at
https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2019-10-04/sleeping-on-a-washing-line
The guy to the left in the first photo looks like Charlie Chaplin :-)
