Do you know what the expression "Tom, Dick and/or Harry" means?

When you want to refer to people that you don't know and are not welcome in a specific situation, you can use that expression. I know, it's still hard to get that. But let us take it one step at a time. Take this example for now: Sally's in her appartment, whose window faces the streets. There's always a great flow of people passing by, which allows some unwelcome people to stop by and gaze through her window. To avoid that, she decides to ask someone that's standing by the window: Please, draw the curtains or we'll have every Tom, Dick and Harry peering through the window.

You see what Sally just said here? She's trying to preserve her privacy by keeping unknown people from peering through her window. "Tom, Dick and Harry" represent here those people she does now know, people that are not importante. We can't blame Sally. Having people snooping into your house is not a pleasant thing. But let's move on to our next example!

You can also use the expression "Tom, Dick and Harry" to refer to people that are not qualified or capable enough to do a certain job. Picture this: Sônia is having plumbing poblems at home. She's really willing to find a good professional to take care of that, so she says: I want a qualified plumber, not just any Tom, Dick and Harry. I don't know where that expression came from, but if we take into consideration that Tom, Dick and Harry are really common names in any English speaking country, we can get to the conclusion that that's why they're used as an expression to refer to very average people, people that are not important (which is not nice, since my name's Tom hahaha).

That's it for now. See you guys later!