Stop dead in you tracks
"I'd be paralyzed if I ran into you. My tongue would seize up if we were to meet again” – Alanis Morrissette
You may have heard of the flight or flight response. It occurs when you are faced with a dangerous or harmful situation. Your body automatically responds by fighting back or running away. But, there are more than two choices here. It should really be called the fight, flight, or freeze response because a lot of people will freeze in these situations. I know that I freeze.
When I was in high school, I worked at a place with elk (large deer). We fed and cared for them. They were very dangerous during the mating season. One time, an elk charged at me. I stopped dead in my tracks and put up the shovel I was holding to protect myself. Luckily, he was just trying to scare me and quickly turned around. My coworkers asked why I didn’t run away. I think it is because of my fight, flight, or freeze response.
Stopping dead in one’s tracks describes stopping something or someone suddenly. It can refer to motion or the process of thinking. My friend, Ranger asked me to look into this phrase because he couldn’t find where it came from. Unfortunately, I also had trouble. According to Google NGram, it seems to have arisen in the mid-nineteenth century. But where it came from seems ambiguous. People stop dead in their tracks when they are surprised or scared of something.
Example 1: I heard a noise coming from the tree next to me and I stopped dead in my tracks.
Example 2: He stopped dead in his tracks when his wife told him she was pregnant.
There are a few explanations for the phrase that I found online. Some people think that it references trains. Trains run on railroad tracks. So, if something is dead on the tracks, they were walking until they suddenly were killed by a train. I am not convinced of this origin because a train isn’t going to stop you as much as it will throw you off the tracks. However, I can see the dead part.
Some people have also put forth the idea of a car coming to a stop or hitting someone, but I think the phrase is too old for this to be true.
Another suggestion is that the tracks are footprints. One definition of tracks is the evidence left behind by something. This means that animals tracks are their footprints, their poop and branches they may have broken. Think about someone walking in snow. You can see their footprints after each step. If they suddenly stop, they have stopped in their tracks.
Sometimes, people just say stop in one’s tracks as mentioned above but there is no mention of death in this last suggestion. However, I think this is on the right track. I think that today’s phrase is a mix of “stop in your tracks” and “stop dead”. The best way to make sure something doesn’t move is to make sure it is dead. Stopping dead can also be used on its own to say that something stopped suddenly.
What has stopped you dead in your tracks?
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Reference:
https://www.englishforums.com/English/IReadSentenceStoopedDead-Tracks/qxcwk/post.htm
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/stop-you-in-your-tracks.1497045/
