Where is the saying "A for away" from? [closed]

Question

I have recently picked up the saying "A for away" (meaning, we are good to go/ready to go). I am English but live in South Africa and watch American TV, so I have no idea where this saying is from. Is it a global saying or regional to one of my "zones"?

Answer 1

In sports, half of a team's games are played on the home field ("home games") and the other half are played on the opponent team's field ("away games"). In this context, it can be said that

H is for home, A is for away

This seems similar to "A is for Apple," which appears in children's alphabet picture books. This phrase is given as a mnemonic to medical students, to help them remember that arteries lead blood away from the heart.

Your definition, we are good to go/ready to go, fits well in the general, non-technical and non-sports sentences I see on the internet, that include this expression.

It seems especially common in South African, but I also came across it in things coming from the UK and Australia.

I have never heard this in the US.

I could not find this expression in any dictionary. Among others, I tried Cambridge and Oxford.

Answer 2

It may be regional.

See https://pigcasso.myshopify.com/products/a-for-away,

where a business in South Africa sells paintings done (supposedly) by a pig. One of them is called “A for Away,” but it’s sold out.

Answer 3

The two previous answers seem to misunderstand the usage of the expression. As the question already provides the meaning –

we are good to go / ready to go

– it seems likely that the expression is a stylistic combination of the normal meaning of "away" with a borrowed construction using the first letter of the key word.

In other words, "we're A for away" is like a cross between "we're off and away" and "we're G for Go".

I don't think this is a particularly regionalised usage, although to my ear it has a certain AmE flavour to it, perhaps deriving from NASA and military styles or Hollywood tropes.

To take the two components separately:

off and away

away
adverb

1. on the way : ALONG
   

   • get away early

2. from this or that place
   

   • go away

adjective

1. absent from a place : GONE
   
   • away for the weekend

[Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary]

The expression "we're A for away" is likely meant in the sense of the idiom off and away, which is often used to emphasise the relief or excitement that a journey, escape, race or game has just started. Published examples of that idiom include:

• I did not linger. Getting swiftly off the mark, I dived for the door-handle, and was off and away, banging the door behind me.—P.G. Wodehouse
• Congratulations! / Today is your day. / You're off to Great Places! / You're off and away!—Dr. Seuss
• I gave them each a taste of the goose, and I was off and away. None of the others wanted to follow me.—Jill Whalen
• 'So we're off?' she asked, backing away towards the front door. Suddenly she so wanted to be off. Off and away. Far away.—Ally Blake

G for Go

go
adjective

functioning properly : being in good and ready condition

• declared all systems go

A famous usage is from the film Apollo 13, with the line "Launch Control, this is Houston. We are go for launch!" (see minute 34)

Adding a reference to the first letter of the key word, as in G for go, is a way of emphasising the word. A published example is:

• Remi flashed me a thumbs-up. "You catch that, Pump? Another fifteen minutes. Otherwise, all systems are G for Go."—Tom Wayman