“So could we do it today instead of tomorrow?”
“No, no… I don’t like to be half cocked.”
OUCH!!!
Now – it is true that half-coked is an American idiom using the term cock (as the hammer of a gun they slide with the side of their hand while shooting in western movies) to signify “not complete”, “unready” or “unprepared” and so you can go off half-cocked for which I, personally, prefer the term “improvise”
BUT (1)
this use is a little outdated now and what this lovely adjectival phrase (most commonly joined with a hyphen) means is the state of mild drunkenness
BUT (2)
Half-cocked is also a nickname of Jack Shaftoe ( a fictional character in the highly acclaimed Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle), earned as a result of an unsuccesful attempt at curing him of syphilis. The Polish translation of the book marvellously renders the name as Jack Półkuśka.
(I should be reading about Jack’s adventurous exploits just now)
