Thinking about swimming across the English Channel? It's 23.7 miles across from England to France, so you might want to take a boat instead. The phrase "across the board" means that all parts of something are affected. But it originally came from horse racing, to describe when someone bet equal amounts of money on a horse to come in first, second, or third place. The "board" was the blackboard where bookmakers chalked up the odds for each horse.