They always say that in a long journey, the first step is always the hardest.
When you want to build up momentum at the start of a project, what you do is you start the ball rolling, to get the project moving, and take those first steps.
But where does the phrase come from?
Surely it is to do with an actual ball rolling that has provided the metaphorical oomph for this particular phrase?
Yes that's correct - it seems to come from croquet, that good old fashioned game. Whoever started the game was the first to hit it, and they of course therefore 'got the ball rolling' in a literal sense, and so the phrase moved and became synonymous with the first steps or movements in anything, as starting the ball rolling.
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