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In Indian English, the phrase "Tom, Dick and Harry" is very prevalent, is used quite frequently in media, movies etc.

On the other hand, I don't see it being used as frequently, in American media.

What phrase would an American use in its place?

Context:

Any tom, dick and harry can solve this problem.

Meaning (Lexico):

Used to refer to ordinary people in general

ColleenV
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Max
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    We say it in Britain too, in fact in probably came from here. – Michael Harvey May 25 '22 at 06:38
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    As an AmE speaker, I would find this phrase perfectly understandable (if a bit old-fashioned.) – Michael Seifert May 25 '22 at 14:29
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    From the Futurama episode, A Head In the Polls, "George H. W. Bush's head: Sorry, Bender, but we just can't allow every Tom, Dick, and Harry to move in. No offence, Jefferson, Nixon and Truman." – Kirk Woll May 25 '22 at 15:39
  • It is used in Britain but I'd consider it old fashioned, bordering on archaic. What I'd use in its place would depend on how insulting (or not) I wished to be. – Jack Aidley May 25 '22 at 16:11
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    ugh, I wanted to say that as an English speaker, that phrase is perfectly acceptable... and then realize I'm old. – CGCampbell May 25 '22 at 16:23
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    This British English speaker uses it fairly often and I'm not that old. Usually in the context of describing a large crowd such as "I had to wait a long time to be served because every Tom, Dick and Harry had decided to turn up" – Robin Elvin May 25 '22 at 16:27
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    Only difference I'd make would be to make it "Tom, Dick, or Harry" rather than "and", but maybe I'm just thinking of that song from Kiss Me, Kate. – Darrel Hoffman May 25 '22 at 16:54
  • It's a very old British expression. Thomas, Richard and Henry have always been very common men's names in England, and Tom, Dick and Harry were the traditional nicknames for them. Nowadays Dick has fallen out of fashion because of the slang meaning, and Harry isn't so much associated with Henry (although Prince Harry was christened Henry), so the expression isn't so familiar to younger people. – Kate Bunting May 25 '22 at 08:28
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    Totamal, Dinesh and Harish – battery May 26 '22 at 07:55
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    The tunnels used in The Great Escape (WW2) were also named "Tom, Dick and Harry" probably related to how often this set of names are used together in English. – Neil May 26 '22 at 10:37
  • I suspect the reduction in use of the phrase is related to the fact that Tom, Harry, and especially Dick are significantly rarer now than they were a few generations ago. Thomas and Tommy seem to still be fairly popular but Tom alone is somewhat unusual, Harold seems to be almost entirely out of fashion, and Richard is still used plenty but almost always abbreviated as Rich for obvious reasons. – Darth Pseudonym May 26 '22 at 12:08
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    @DarthPseudonym - I know several Toms (and no Tommies)! Harry was traditionally a nickname for Henry as well as Harold. – Kate Bunting May 26 '22 at 14:01
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    @DarrelHoffman: I would say it depends: "any Tom, Dick, or Harry" (i.e. any one person) but "every Tom, Dick, and Harry" (i.e. everybody). So in the OP's example, I agree with your "or". – TonyK May 26 '22 at 14:14
  • @CGCampbell happens to the best of us – jcollum May 26 '22 at 15:45
  • OK, @battery, I about fell out of my chair. Good thing I was done with my coffee or you'd have owed me a new keyboard & monitor! – FreeMan May 26 '22 at 16:05
  • @DarthPseudonym - there's a prince in UK (6th in line for the throne) , but I suspect if he ever got there he'd be known as Harold. More to the point - who in particular were Tom Dick and Harry? – Tim May 27 '22 at 11:46
  • @Tim I'm mean let's be clear, I'm not saying nobody has those names anymore. Just that they're not remotely three of the most common male names anymore, which is probably the source of the phrase. (Though notably in Shakespeare it's given as Tom, Dicke, and Francis. But there the line is spoken by Prince Henry, which as Kate pointed out can also be a Harry!) – Darth Pseudonym May 27 '22 at 12:16
  • @DarthPseudonym - actually, I'm wrong. He'd be King Henry IX if he got that far, not Harold. But it would take a few assassinations to get there... I'm surprised that Shakespeare missed the opportunity for Francis to say "To be frank - oh, actually, I am...". – Tim May 27 '22 at 12:33
  • How about "Every Donald, George and Ronald"? – 681234 May 28 '22 at 10:59
  • @681234 which one Jr or Sr. – Max May 28 '22 at 11:40

7 Answers7

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As Michael Siefert says, this is both used and immediately recognizable in American English, but it would be generational, with the oldest speakers finding it natural, many or most middle-aged speakers finding it antiquated, and younger speakers likely being unfamiliar with it. The reason you are not seeing it in media is because the mass-media would focus on the middle demographic and so would only use it when they wanted to imply old-fashionedness.

Youth typically use 'literally' as an emphasizer, so young people would say "Literally anyone could solve this". However, that would be too slang to be used in mass media (although common in demographically targeted social media).

More recognizable alternatives include "Any Joe (or any regular Joe or any Joe Shmoe)," "any guy off the street", "any idiot", "any fool", and "anyone with half a brain". The first two emphasize how easy the problem is such that any common person has the ability to solve it, and the second three that even someone of limited ability would be able to solve it.

Other answers and comments have suggested 'everyone and their brother' or 'everyone and their dog'. I think there is a subtle distinction here between anyone and everyone, that is, between saying that the problem is so easy that a single person of the lowest common denominator could solve it, and saying it is so easy that every person in any given group would be able to solve it. I think this is the same distinction that Darrel Hoffman and gotube are drawing between 'Tom, Dick, or Harry' and 'Tom, Dick, and Harry', but I don't know if that distinction is used in Indian English or what the OP's original intent was.

Since I have just finished my yearly re-watch of GATTACA (I show it to my students) I feel I should include a quote from Jerome / Eugene:

That was the company that sell us your hair dye. They sent me ''summer wheat" instead of "honey dawn." Any fool knows it's two shades lighter.

Kirt
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  • Yeah, in priority order I would suggest "any idiot" is #1 where crude/casual is okay and "anyone off the street" would be #2, perhaps with a "literally" thrown in before either of those phrases. – JamieB May 25 '22 at 15:50
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    Hmm...the "Tom, Dick, and Harry" expression sounds quite normal to me...and I haven't thought of myself as 'old' yet...thanks for the insight :-) – Basya May 26 '22 at 08:19
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    I'm approaching middle-age (at least, that's what they tell me), and I don't find it the least antiquated sounding. It's not common here in the States anymore, but I think most people would at least understand it even if they don't use it. – FreeMan May 26 '22 at 16:07
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    Probably the Average Joe rather than any Joe. – Yorik May 26 '22 at 19:21
  • Just wanted to throw in my experience here...I actually clicked this link on SE because I was curious what "Tom, Dick, and Harry" meant. I was born in 1989 in California and I exclusively speak English with Pacific Northwest/Northern Californian dialect. More generally I do occasionally hear slang in movies that I literally have never heard any person say in real life. So there might be some regional usage here. – Christopher A. Wong May 26 '22 at 21:01
  • Also middle-aged and this is something I recognize but would only say if I'm trying to be funny, kind of like "willy-nilly" or "who put that bee in your bonnet?" or "hey mac, got a light?" – Thierry May 27 '22 at 00:33
  • @Yorik Certainly Average Joe would be the more common expression, but I don't think it fits the OP's use as well – Kirt May 27 '22 at 06:14
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A common casual phrase is "everyone and their brother". YourDictionary has the following definition:

(idiomatic) A large number of people; most people.

Similar phrases are "everyone and their dog" and "everyone and their mom". The general idea of all of these is that it doesn't require any special expertise -- "everyone" is interpreted as people familiar with the activity in question, but "their brother/mom/dog" would not be assumed to have similar experience. The variant with "dog" is especially broad, since most dogs can't do anything that humans are especially good at (but they have their own abilities that make up for it).

Barmar
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    Or "anybody and their dog". Or "any Joe". Or several other variations on the theme. – Jeff Zeitlin May 25 '22 at 15:03
  • I'm not sure I've heard this one, but I've heard "everyone and their mom" and "everyone and their dog." It looks like that last one may be the most common: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Everyone+and+their+brother%2C+everyone+and+their+mom%2C+everyone+and+their+dog&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2CEveryone%20and%20their%20brother%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ceveryone%20and%20their%20mom%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ceveryone%20and%20their%20dog%3B%2Cc0 – Brian McCutchon May 25 '22 at 15:06
  • @BrianMcCutchon I don't think I've heard "mom", but I've heard "dog". I've added to the answer. – Barmar May 25 '22 at 15:11
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    Also frequently "and their..." changed to whatever seems most ludicrous/made up at the time, eg "everyone and their granny" – fdomn-m May 25 '22 at 15:15
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    "Everyone and their dog" means lots of people. "Any Tom, Dick or Harry" refers to only one arbitrary person. – gotube May 25 '22 at 18:43
  • I only ever heard 'anybody and their aunt'. Interesting variations! – Aganju May 25 '22 at 19:18
  • @gotube Not in the sentence in the OP. It's basically the difference between using "anyone" or "everyone", but in contexts like this they're equivalent. – Barmar May 25 '22 at 19:19
  • @Aganju I guess it depends on which relatives people think are the least clever :) – Barmar May 25 '22 at 19:22
  • @Barmar "Everyone and their brother" can replace "Every Tom, Dick and Harry", but it cannot replace "Any Tom, Dick or Harry", as in the OP – gotube May 25 '22 at 21:04
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    @gotube I think they both have the same meaning when the rest of the sentence is "can solve this problem". No one would think that you mean that this means everyone is working together to solve the problem. – Barmar May 25 '22 at 21:17
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    The nuance here is a little different, I think. "Everyone and ..." phrases are more commonly used to talk about what is popular or fashionable. – Karl Knechtel May 26 '22 at 22:50
  • @BrianMcCutchon Historically, there was one canonical form "everyone and his brother." I think in this ngrams graph you can see the effect of increasing sensitivity to gender-noninclusive speech: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=everyone+and+his+brother%2Ceveryone+and+their+mom%2Ceveryone+and+their+dog&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ceveryone%20and%20his%20brother%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ceveryone%20and%20their%20mom%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ceveryone%20and%20their%20dog%3B%2Cc0 – Mark Foskey May 27 '22 at 15:55
  • @MarkFoskey Which is interesting because "and his XXX" is not particularly complimentary to the XXX, they're being used as an example of someone with little expertise. So we should be more inclusive when hurling insults, too. – Barmar May 27 '22 at 15:59
  • But "everyone and his brother" is not really a good answer to the question anyway. It wasn't used to suggest that something was so easy anyone could do it. Rather, it was used to indicate that something was really popular so that everyone was doing it. Not just everyone, in fact, but everyone and also his brother. The sexist part is that it sort of assumes that the default person is a guy. – Mark Foskey May 27 '22 at 17:59
  • @MarkFoskey If you say "everyone and his brother does it" then you're saying it's popular. If you say "everyone and his brother can do it" then you're saying it's easy. – Barmar May 27 '22 at 18:30
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One could simply say

Anybody/anyone could solve this problem.

As "tom, dick and harry" refers to an ordinary person in general. Usually in most cases, "anybody/anyone" is used to describe the general public/people.

DialFrost
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9

I would suggest that a similar phrase would be: Average Joe

An excerpt from Wikipedia's page on the term includes:

used primarily in North America to refer to a completely average person, typically an average American. It can be used both to give the image of a hypothetical "completely average person"

In the example given in your question, it would be used like:

The average Joe can solve this problem.

Or some similar phrasings:

Your average Joe can solve this problem.

Any average Joe can solve this problem.

Kirt mentions "Joe" in their answer, but I think that specifically an average Joe is equivalent.

"Average Joe" is the first item listed in the "See also" section of the Wikipedia page for "Tom, Dick, and Harry".

"Average Joe" is on this list of terms referring to an average person, on which is also found "Tom, Dick, and Harry": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terms_referring_to_an_average_person

elmer007
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    An 'average Joe' represents some populational median, though - whereas any Tom, Dick [or] Harry is more inclusive, specifically more inclusive of the bottom end on whatever scale you are using. The average Joe could be expected to solve common problems, including those too difficult for anyone. – Kirt May 26 '22 at 00:06
  • Note this is purely an American usege. It is not British English – mmmmmm May 26 '22 at 14:26
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It is native English, so it would be perfectly understandable as is, although or is used more frequently. It just means "anyone". It can be used with "any old" as well (which is the form familiar to me).

Any Tom, Dick and Harry [unexpected people] can walk across my lawn.

I'll just get any old Tom, Dick or Harry [anyone will do] to paint the shed.

It is considered outdated, but actually increasing in usage since about 2000. The Google Ngram viewer illustrates this, although note the form with commas cannot be searched due to limitations in the crude nature of that company's "advanced" search features.

Rich
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They'd probably say; "any old Joe".

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There's an interesting usage of that, showing (IMHO) what to make of it, nowadays:

In a translation from Chaucer's "Canterbury tales" (middle English → modern English), we read in the original of the friar's tale:

He had eke wenches at his retinue, also prostitutes
That whether that Sir Robert or Sir Hugh,
Or Jack or Ralph or whoso that it were
That lay by them, they told it in his ear.

The translation says

Moreover, he had harlots at command, and so, if Reverend Robert, or Reverend Hugh, Tom, Dick, or Harry, or whoever, had one of them, it reached the summoner's ear".

So it just means an arbitrary list of names, potential customers of "wenches"="harlots". And, being used as a translation of this ancient tale, it carries the notion of "a bit ancient".

Glorfindel
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Pengolodh
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