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Comment by imglorp | Hacker News Reader

> Columbo starts by pulling on all the strings and then doggedly chasing the inconsistencies and loose ends.

Interesting quirk of English idioms here. Maybe regional?

    * Pulling strings often means to control, as a marionette
    * Pulling threads often means to inspect closely and follow a pattern

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Native English speaker, would give the same rough definitions for each phrase if asked[0], but for whatever reason I read the GP and didn't think it was out of place at all. Immediately got the intended meaning. Even after having it pointed out it seems fine to me, in fact I can't really see the "control" meaning even though I know it should be there.

[0]: Though I'd use "pulling the strings" and "pulling at threads".

>> Columbo starts by pulling on all the strings and then doggedly chasing the inconsistencies and loose ends.

> Interesting quirk of English idioms here. Maybe regional?

> * Pulling strings often means to control, as a marionette

> * Pulling threads often means to inspect closely and follow a pattern

That's way too clever for me to have done intentionally. I just had my idioms scrambled.

“Pulling on the strings” has a different meaning from “pulling strings”. That may not seem reasonable, but it’s an expression that is phrasal-verb adjacent, and a single preposition can alter the meaning.

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