Every fan of gangster movies is familiar with the expression take it on the lam. But no matter how much you may know about fleeing the law, we'll bet you can't explain just what the "it" is that is being taken on the lam ... and we bet you'll also have a pretty tough time figuring out the lam part of the phrase.

To take it on the lam is "to run away," but don't worry about the "it": you can take it or leave it. Plenty of folks do leave "it" out, referring to "a sudden or hurried flight, especially from the law," simply as being on the lam.

So what's the story behind lam? Forget woolly critters and think thrashing. Back in the late 16th century, when the three-letter lam was borrowed into English from Scandinavian tongues, it was a verb meaning "to beat soundly." Then, late in the 19th century, criminal types lifted lam for their own nefarious purposes. Much in the same way that beat became part of the expression beat it, the literal lam developed an extended slang sense meaning "to run off."

Before century's end, gangsters and other bad guys had adopted the noun phrase on the lam into their own argot. And although the phrase soon moved from the underworld into the ordinary world, the expression still retains connotations of avoiding the law.

Hence 'lambast'? or 'lambada'?