"In 1929, the newly elected President, Herbert Hoover, sent in a team of agents to break up Capone's violent politico-criminal empire. They convicted Capone not for his murders but on a white-collar charge of Federal income tax evasion. He died in jail -- 'NUTTY AS A FRUITCAKE,' as a gangland visitor reported."
(David Johnson, www.cdi.org, Dec. 1998)
Did you know?
Did you know?
The phrase "nutty as a fruitcake" originated in America in the 1920s and means to be crazy or extremely strange in behaviour.
A fruitcake presumably contains so many nuts, that to be as nutty as one is to be really, really crazy.