This is where “rough and tumble” comes from – rough signifying that this style of fighting is lax and unregulated, hence perhaps looking disorderly and scrappy, lacking discipline, finesse and refinement.
The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer says this expression “originated in the late 1700s in boxing, where it referred to a fight without rules.”
That makes sense, too. America is too young to observe European style of wrestling of the olden days and therefore find it sensible to replace wrestling with boxing. Makes perfect sense.
It also makes sense to describe a journalist’s career as rough and tumble, i.e. highly disorganized and lacking the regularity and routine of the life of the ordinary folk.
The journalist travels a lot, for example. And if he/she covers breaking news, they’d be all over the place any time of the day or night. Meals don’t come at regular intervals, to begin with, as you can imagine. And even if they are copy editors who work in house, they have to man different shifts, during the morning, evening or late night.
The night shifts are especially killing. When they’re done with work, it’s almost dawn and, ironically, they’re not sleepy any more. They tried to dose off at work quite a few times but now, when they’re supped to be in bed, they’re wide awake.
Not a few copy editors are alcoholic and there is a reason. They say they have to drink themselves to sleep – during the day, that is. When everybody else is up and about, copy editors on the night shift have to force themselves to sleep.
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