Adopt an unyielding attitude. This nineteenth-century expression alludes to flying a flag from a ship’s mast. If the flag is nailed to the mast, it cannot be hauled down. Sir Walter Scott may have been the first to put it in writing: “Stood for his country’s glory fast, And nailed her colours to the mast” (Marmion, 1808). Although the days of flag-flying sailing ships are in the past, the expression lives on. It appeared in Great Outdoors (Sept. 27, 1989): “The prince neatly side-stepped nailing his colours to the mast in the national parks debate.”