Who Are Tom, Dick, and Harry?
Sometimes we can’t trace the exact origin of an idiom that’s been popularized over centuries, but the history of “Tom, Dick, and Harry” is easier to follow. The original threesome, however, included a Mary, not a Harry. It appeared in a 1592 pamphlet, “Four Letters Confuted,” by Thomas Nashe, a
British pamphleteer and author. He wrote, “Men myth [sic] think themselves in Paul’s churchyard without Tom, Dick and Mary.” Shakespeare adopted similar phrasing a few years later, but he replaced Mary with Francis in Henry IV, Part 1. In Act 2, Scene 4, Prince Hal’s loyal confidante, Ned Poins, asks...
