Origin of Saying

[slippe]

origin of 'on a hiding to nothing'

[Quizmonster]

It almost certainly originated in horse-racing circles where odds are expressed as 'something to something'...eg 100 to 1 against. When someone is 'on a hiding to niothing', it means the odds against him are effectively infinite or insuperable. Certainly, the earliest recorded use of the phrase was in a book called 'Mop Fair' by A M Binstead published in 1905.