“Go for the Jugular” | Lexicon

The familiar phrase “go for the jugular” comes from a remark by 19th-century Boston lawyer and U.S. Senator Rufus Choate, describing John Quincy Adams, another Massachusetts resident and sixth president of the United States: “He has peculiar powers as an assailant, and almost always, even when attacked, gets himself into that attitude by making war upon his accusers; and he has, withal, an instinct for the jugular and carotid artery, as unerring as that of any carnivorous animal.” Excerpt from “The New England Sampler,” Yankee Magazine, May 1994.