Surely you can explain the meaning of "drawing at strings", and how the meaning is derived?
You see... "clutching at straws" refers to how someone drowning in a river might grasp for anything floating past, even if it's just a bit of reed or straw; desperate for anything to keep them afloat they choose something that at first glance might help, but for which it is obvious to all those standing on the bank that it will not do the job.

You see... the metaphor is quite clear.

How do your drawstrings relate to this?
(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Tue 17 Jun 2014, 17:02, 2 replies)

sure
A man who was once so upset that he had never heard a phrase before wanted to draw a picture to explain his anger to a bunch of people who didn't care. He had nothing to draw on so he stopped and sucked everyone's penis until he could think of a meaning for the phrase he was ignorant of. Finally after sucking a thousand penises he made string out of their pubic hair and drew a picture of a mermaid getting fucked by a horse with the string. Forever more the saying "drawing at strings" was synonymous with conjecture.
( smearballs double bag it!, Tue 17 Jun 2014, 17:21, closed)

more likely though
it probably refers to drawing the string of a bow and firing an arrow blindly hoping you hit the target.
( smearballs double bag it!, Tue 17 Jun 2014, 17:23, closed)

OK.... but surely it would have entered the English language
around about the time we were we using bows and arrows for stuff,
not around the time we setup a colonies in the the new world.

Also... if you're an expert archer, you still draw the string... only you hit rather than miss.

Fuck it dude... I'm just taking the piss.
(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Tue 17 Jun 2014, 17:35, closed)

haha
C'mon man I wanted to go into 4 more hours of not working and debating the buoyancy of straw vs. an archer's mentality.
( smearballs double bag it!, Tue 17 Jun 2014, 17:38, closed)

it's just a bollocks phrase used by a handful of illiterate canucks who don't understand English.
There are zero results for "idiom 'drawing at strings'" ... no Frencher results either.

It doesn't have an etymology because no functioning adults have ever used it.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 17 Jun 2014, 17:55, closed)

no'ffence like

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 17 Jun 2014, 17:58, closed)

I apologize
I hope the stress that the obscurity of the phrase I used didn't cause you any personal harm. You must have had a shit when "selfie" was introduced into the dictionary because it wasn't used in the time of Shakespeare.
( smearballs double bag it!, Tue 17 Jun 2014, 18:10, closed)

It was.
He used it in the deleted scene from Hamlet, in
which he tries to get his cock in his own mouth.
(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Tue 17 Jun 2014, 18:24, closed)

Too much of water hast I, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I hath pissed in my own mouth
( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Tue 17 Jun 2014, 18:29, closed)

oh pudding ... bless your little socks for trying
'selfie' is already in the dictionary and has billions of Google results ... you really can't accept that your English is wonky, can you?
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 17 Jun 2014, 18:57, closed)