# Origin of "Not the face!"/"Don't hit the face!"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 23, 2008, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730 "2008-01-23T22:41:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/21 "2008-01-24T03:42:00Z")
I have it on good authority that it originates from 1978’s _Debbie Does Dallas_.
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### Author:  [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/22 "2008-01-24T03:47:53Z")
[QUOTE=Terrifel]
Goddamn, I love the SDMB…
[/QUOTE]
I was gonna say, from _Rocky_ to _Plutarch’s Life of Caesar_ – **this is why I love the Straight Dope!**
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/23 "2008-01-24T04:18:40Z")
On the other hand, several accounts of the Battle of Gettysburg describe some of the Confederate troops who retreated after the failed Pickett’s Charge walking slowly and defiantly backwards, their faces to the Union lines, so that they wouldn’t be shot in the back (which would indicate cowardice to those who recovered their bodies).
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### Author:  [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/24 "2008-01-24T04:38:27Z")
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
On the other hand, several accounts of the Battle of Gettysburg describe some of the Confederate troops who retreated after the failed Pickett’s Charge walking slowly and defiantly backwards, their faces to the Union lines, so that they wouldn’t be shot in the back (which would indicate cowardice to those who recovered their bodies).
[/QUOTE]
Well, that’s one theory. However we shouldn’t discount the vanity motivation out of hand. Frankly, a glance at Civil War-era photographs suggests that, for a lot of these guys, the face was probably not the most attractive part of the body.
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### Author:  [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boozahol_Squid_P.I)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/25 "2008-01-24T04:39:02Z")
[QUOTE=commasense]
What’s the Latin for “Not in the face!”?
(Who says a classical liberal arts education is useless?)
[/QUOTE]
Faciem ne tetigite!
(lit. Don’t touch the face!)
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### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/26 "2008-01-24T05:39:21Z")
[QUOTE=Terrifel]
[Quote=commasense]
After a few minutes’ Googling (searching on “aimed at their faces”), I found my own cite: Plutarch’s Life of Caesar, section 45.
It was the Battle of Pharsalus, 48 B.C., Caesar vs. Pompey.
What’s the Latin for “Not in the face!”?
(Who says a classical liberal arts education is useless?)
[/QUOTE]
Goddamn, I love the SDMB…
[/QUOTE]
> [@F. U. Shakespeare](#):
>
> I was gonna say, from Rocky to Plutarch’s Life of Caesar – this is why I love the Straight Dope!
Aw, shucks, guys…
_[blushes furiously]_
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/27 "2008-01-24T10:37:22Z")
[QUOTE=Diomedes]
Faciem ne tetigite!
(lit. Don’t touch the face!)
[/QUOTE]
Or _noli{te} faciem tangere_. _noli_, “be unwilling”, and the infinitive is a common negative instruction in Latin, falling in peremptoriness of tone between the direct imperative as in **Diomedes** ’s example and the milder iussive subjunctive. _Impatiens noli-me-tangere_ is the touch-me-not plant.
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### Author:  [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/28 "2008-01-24T16:06:58Z")
I found a literary reference that dates to 1948. There is a Frank Yerby novel called the _Golden Hawk_ where the hero is lusted after by a Moorish prince. During a battle the prince has his men isolate the hero and capture him, but with specific orders not to mess up his face. Throughout the battle (while the moors are trying not to kill him or mess up his face) the moor Lt. is shouting, “not the face, not the face” to his men).
For what it is worth, two things came out of the fight in the book. First the hero gained an incredible reputation as a fighter among his own people. His allies didn’t know about the order to not kill him so they see all these guys going after him and him killing all these moors and thus see him as this indistructable killing machine. The other thing was that his body was so marred by the little wonds inflicted by the moors that the Moorish prince was physically sickened by all the scars on his body when he saw him naked so the hero was never, well, deflowered.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/29 "2008-01-24T16:54:21Z")
To every cloud there is a silver lining.
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### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2008, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/30 "2008-01-25T14:30:34Z")
[QUOTE=TV time]
I found a literary reference that dates to 1948.
[/QUOTE]
I beat you by 2,000 years. Nyah, nyah!
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### Author:  [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2008, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/31 "2008-01-25T15:06:05Z")
There’s a great variation at the beginning of _Saturday Night Fever_, when Tony tells his Dad to “watch the hair”.
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### Author:  [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boozahol_Squid_P.I)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2008, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-not-the-face-dont-hit-the-face/434730/32 "2008-01-29T23:14:49Z")
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
Or _noli{te} faciem tangere_. _noli_, “be unwilling”, and the infinitive is a common negative instruction in Latin, falling in peremptoriness of tone between the direct imperative as in **Diomedes** ’s example and the milder iussive subjunctive. _Impatiens noli-me-tangere_ is the touch-me-not plant.
[/QUOTE]
_This_ is why the Dope is the best place on the internet.
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