'close to the knuckle'

[mpela1]

What does 'close to the knuckle' mean?

[Quizmonster]

It means: 'just on the verge of being indecent'. We use it generally when someone is telling a joke in mixed company - though this is not so marked nowadays as it used to be! - that really would have fitted an all-male audience better. Ladies, you see, used to be thought of as delicate flowers whose ears should never be offended by the sexual words or ideas that men might employ.

The idea of the 'knuckle' has been used to suggest a 'limit' of one sort or another since the 1500s. One writer back then spoke of English soldiers being "up to the knuckles in French blood".

The use of 'near/close to the knuckle' to suggest risqu� jokes etc did not appear until the 1890s, the height of the supposedly prudish Victorian age.

[Rissa]

Why "up to the *knuckles*", though? A rather odd body part to choose, methinks?

[n_jagota]

Hey,

Can anyone tell me what does the phrase 'kick the long ball' in the lines below means ?

Real maturity begins when you finally realize that no-one is coming to the rescue.It is only when you accept total responsibility for your life situation, with no excuses & no blaming of others, that you move into a mental position to 'kick the long ball' in your own life.

Thanks,
Neeta Jagota