But there is a lesser-known, far more unsettling sibling in the idiom family:
Or think of the Nuremberg Trials (1945-46). The Allied powers could have simply shot the Nazi leadership. Instead, they used the long tongue of the law: months of testimony, documents read aloud, and a final judgment that called the Holocaust "the most horrible crime in human history." The tongue labeled them, shamed them, and wrote their infamy into eternity. Of course, the long tongue is not infallible. Sometimes it stutters. Sometimes it is bribed into silence. the long tong of the law
We have all heard of the "long arm of the law"—that metaphorical limb that can reach around corners, across state lines, and into the darkest hiding places to drag a fugitive back to the dock. But there is a lesser-known, far more unsettling
The worst injustice is not a failed arrest (the arm missing its grab). It is a failed prosecution (the tongue telling the wrong story). Ultimately, why does the "tongue" metaphor matter? Of course, the long tongue is not infallible