Hey, I know it's hyperbolic, but let's not call for violence against people.

"Throw him all the way down the stairs" is keeping with the "take him down a few pegs" metaphor. It's obvious it was not meant literally.

Yes, thank you.

I guess I was using the idiom wrong, it's apparently "take (one) down a peg" but I've always said "knock (one) down a peg," and when I say it I always pictured, in my head, a bunch of pegs lined up like stairs and someone being knocked "down" to a physically lower peg. it's actually one of the few idioms that prompts me have a mental image of it in my head.

I wonder what the actual origin of the idiom is.

"Violent" idioms are not uncommon:

"My wife is going to kill me when I get home."

"This company is raking me over the coals."

"That's it, the gloves are off."

"She's out for blood."

I'm veering off topic now but I find the English StackExchange an absolute timesink of interesting triviality for this stuff: https://english.stackexchange.com/a/29351.

(Since I can't reply to the inner comment: - the phrase itself seems to have no solid canonical first reference but a few sources online say it's to do with ships and the navy, eg http://jimcofer.com/personal/2011/04/13/what-the-navy-gave-e..., I guess pick your favourite and run with it! :)

That wasn't very helpful, it was basically "I have no idea but here's some wild speculation."

>It has been suggested... or... Either of these might be correct... 'pegs' could relate to many things.... it isn't clear what they were... Lacking any real evidence, we can't be sure of the origin.

>It's obvious it was not meant literally.

Yep, and that's why I acknowledged it was hyperbole. There is no need to then say he needs to be thrown down some stairs.

The bit about the stairs _was_ the obviously not literal bit.