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Tom, Dick and Harry
The phrase "Tom, Dick and Harry" is a placeholder for multiple unspecified people; "Tom, Dick or Harry" plays the same role for ''one'' unspecified person. The phrase most commonly occurs as "every Tom, Dick and Harry", meaning ''everyone'', and "any Tom, Dick or Harry", meaning ''anyone'', although Brewer defines the term to specify "a set of nobodies; persons of no note".
Similar expressions exist in other languages of the world, using commonly used first or last names.〔(Other Tom Dick and Harrys )〕 The phrase is used in numerous works of fiction.
==Origin==
The origin of the phrase is unknown. The earliest known citation is from the 17th-century English theologian John Owen who used the words in 1657.〔Peter Toon, ''God’s Statesman'', pg. 52.〕〔 Owen told a governing body at Oxford University that "our critical situation and our common interests were discussed out of journals and newspapers by every Tom, Dick and Harry."〔〔 Pairs of common male names, particularly Jack and Tom, Dick and Tom, or Tom and Tib, were often used generically in Elizabethan times.〔("Tom, Dick, and Harry" ), the Gramaphobia Blog, February 18, 2007〕 For example a variation of the phrase can be found in Shakespeare’s ''Henry IV'', Part 1 (1597): "I am sworn brother to a leash of Drawers, and can call them by their names, as Tom, Dicke, and Francis."〔〔(''Henry IV'', Part 1 ), via Wikisource〕 (However, the person speaking this line is Prince Henry, otherwise known as Harry, so Shakespeare could have been making a play on an already-known phrase.)
The phrase is a rhetorical device known as a tricolon, the most common form of tricolon in English is an ascending tricolon and as such the names are always said in order of ascending syllable length. Other examples of this gradation include "tall, dark and handsome", "hook, line and sinker", "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"; and so on.
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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