Where did the term walking on pins and needles originate, as well as other like psychology cliches?
While “pins and needles” is useful in general medicine to denote a sensory condition arising per lack of circulation, the folk wisdom “walking on pins and needles” is known to express the “wake up and smell the coffee” event wherewith someone has “fallen asleep at the postural switch” and must “get a move on.” Walter Brennan’s grandpappy Amos McCoy’s a-hoppin’ in 1950s tv’s “The Rifleman” is a semi-comedic exemplification of the uncomfortable sensation and condition of “walking on pins and needles.” “Stonewalling” is a metaphor which reflects “body armor” and “putting up a strong resistance” to verbal blandishment. “Walking on eggshells” is another poetic metaphor which retains its efficacy as it imports a very difficult physical act, applying more to social, emotional circumstances. To answer your general question, such metaphors arise in the creative nexus of human needs and experience. Their useful life is first highly expressive (current “in” jargon, e.g. of a generational sort), t
