这个短语的字面解释就是“从手柄上飞出去”。这是什么意思？请看对话：

    A: Guess who I ran into today? Larry, our old neighbor before we moved south.

    B: Keep it down, girl! Your elder sister is trying to get to sleep. If you wake her up she will fly off the handle.

    Note: This idiom means to “lose one’s temper.” This metaphoric expression alludes to the loosened head of a hammer flying off after a blow. The phrase is credited to the 19th-century humorist Thomas Haliburton. He wrote in “The Attaché or Sam Slick in England:” “He flies right off the handle for nothing.” Haliburton was an inventive writer and had a hand in the coining of several commonly used phrases, including “ginger up” and “won’t take no for an answer.”