You're a corn-stepper

[Hen Hanna]

-- [step on a corn] --- Was this a common expression ?

Bannion --- Is this name Irish?

Bannon --- seems more definitely Irish



from a great classic Noire :

[Lieutenant?] Wilks: I'm the one that gets the pressure calls from upstairs. I'm the one that has to explain. You don't keep an office like this very long stepping on a lot of corns.

Dave Bannion: Do you want me to go upstairs and explain?

Wilks: Not you. You're a corn-stepper by instinct.



"A corn-stepper by instinct," Bannion is not able to understand why he is ordered to lay off the case and "stop pestering the widow," since he now realizes that Lucy told the truth: "She talks to me just once - (he clicks his finger) - like that, she's dead."


______________________


It's still used:

2016/04/16 - But now you have come back with more strawman arguments. Did I 'step on a corn' of yours? I'm sorry if I did ...

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Fri, 24 Feb 2017 14:06:38 -0800 (PST), Hen Hanna <henh...@gmail.com>
wrote:

I haven't heard it recently, myself.

A corn is:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/corn#corn_Noun_200

A small, painful area of thickened skin on the foot, especially on
the toes, caused by pressure.

So actually stepping on someone's corns is painful. However, the phrase
is normally figurative.

OED:

to tread on any one's corns: fig. to wound his susceptibilities.

a1855 C. Brontë Professor (1857) II. xxv. 240 To work me into
lunacy by treading on my mental corns.
1855 Thackeray Newcomes II. xxv. 239 Insulted the doctor, and
trampled on the inmost corns of the nurse.
1886 ‘S. Tytler’ Buried Diamonds iv, We cannot avoid treading on
each other's corns as we go on our various ways.

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.english.usage)

[Hen Hanna]

On Friday, February 24, 2017 at 3:06:44 PM UTC-8, Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Feb 2017 14:06:38 -0800 (PST), Hen Hanna

I missed this one (just above).
I heard this as [stepping on a lot of toes.]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/step_on_someone's_toes


Thank you very much, Peter Duncanson [BrE], --
I thought it was farming metaphor.

I guess sometimes one gets a corn on the
upper (or side-upper) part of the foot.

I wonder why I never get one.
---> Ok, light, comfy shoes, HH

[Hen Hanna]

stepping on a neighboring farmer's corn.

> I guess sometimes one gets a corn on the
> upper (or side-upper) part of the foot.
>
> I wonder why I never get one.
> ---> Ok, light, comfy shoes, HH

Now i realize...
to say: [You're a corn-stepper]
is kind of clever. Jack-Lemmon-like.

I didn't expect it from a 1953 movie.
but i guess it (the device) occurred earlier :


arm-twister, button-pusher, nerve-toucher,
baby's-candy-stealer, paper-chaser,
(Pencil-pusher?) ...

---- Is there a name for this?

HH