As broad as it is long

Posted by Victoria S Dennis October 08, 2009 at 06:53In reply to As broad as it is long posted by S Barker on October 07, 2009 at 18:56:

Can anyone give the meaning or origination of the saying 'As broad as it is long'?

Its meaning is that the arguments on both sides [of whatever is under discussion] are of equal value, or that two ways of going about doing something will bring about the same result, so that neither is to be preferred to the other. A very similar phrase is "six of one and half a dozen of the other". Both are obvious metaphors of size and number respectively, and have no named originator. "As broad as it is long" was already an established phrase in 1984, as it appears in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable in that year. (VSD)