Crystal Balls and Secretive Elves

Hiya Folks,

If you were to gaze into a crystal ball, what would you say you saw? Let’s say you were only a mediocre crystal ball gazer. Not adept. Possibly a shoddy fraud.

In which case you might be inclined to say:

That’s anybody’s guess

Or

The future is anybody’s guess

The person visiting the tent you pitched at the fair is sure to ask for a refund, but more importantly, we have come to our first idiom.

The next time you are debating some topic in the future, just throw in matter-of-factly: “Oh, that’s anybody’s guess”, or “Well, the future is anybody’s guess, isn’t it?”

The beauty of this idiom is that it is not quite set in stone. You can play around with the words that come before or after it. Fun! How will you put it?

Now, let’s change scenarios completely. Somebody has given you a task, a job, a project, a mission (even if it’s cleaning out the garage or picking up every stray leaf in the yard). In all likelihood, it’s something you’d rather not do. And what’s more, they’ve told you in no uncertain terms exactly what you need to do, all the nitty gritty details.. How would you respond?

Nothing rude now.

If you wanted to use an idiom (of course you do), you could say:

Our work is cut out for us

Your work is cut out for you

And you could keep conjugating that one just for fun, and see just how many people have work cut out for them. Amazing!

Like the idiom above, you could also add a few words, like seasoning.

Ah, I see your work is cut out for you

You might get a black eye for your unappreciated observation.

This one might go over a little better:

Well, I guess our work is cut out for us

And you could have a conversation about it:

-Well, I guess our work is cut out for us.

-Yup, certainly looks like it’s cut out, isn’t it?

-Sure is cut out for us.

-We’d better get to work, huh? Seeing as it’s cut out for us and all.

Challenge: see how far you can take this conversation without getting any work done!

In all seriousness, it’s an interesting saying, and it brings to mind the story of “The Elves and the Shoemaker”. You know the one – the shoemaker and his wife aren’t earning a very good living, not getting many sales in, and then one evening the shoemaker cuts out the pattern for a pair of shoes, intent on sewing them in the morning. But lo and behold, when he gets up and rubs his eyes, and maybe asks his wife to give him a good pinch (Hey! Not that hard. I get it. I’m not dreaming), they both realize that someone came in the night and sewed up the shoes in a quick and cunning manner. They get sold almost straightaway.

Now the shoemaker knows he’s onto a good thing, so he cuts a pattern for a second pair of shoes, lays them out, and once again on the morrow they are accosted by the magical sight of a sewn pair of dainty shoes which gets sold again. Now they are really rolling in it. But are they happy?

Come to think of it, why are people never happy in fairy tales? They tend to be greedy, like the people in “The Goose Who Laid the Golden Egg” and then no more eggs. I leave that conundrum to you to debate at length with a coterie of your close friends.

Getting back to the shoemaker and his wife, they lie in wait on the third night, see the elves who pop up out of nowhere, swiftly sew the leather for the next pair of shoes, and then leave again. And then to thank them, the wife wants to leave out milk and cookies (wasn’t that Santa’s particular treat?). And of course as soon as she does, the elves realize they’ve been discovered. So they partake of the midnight snack but never return again.

But you could say their work was literally cut out for them.

You could also say the shoemaker and his wife should have left well enough alone.

You could also say…

Well, I’ll leave that to you. We could be up all night berating the shoemaker and his wife for their faux pas.

All this ranting brings us to our third and last idiom.

Let’s say you’re gossiping (tsk, tsk). Or one better than that: you are in a heated debate regarding some political manoeuvre. The debate or point of argument centres on a decision that someone is making and with which you don’t agree. But being an opinionated sort of person, you feel the need to add your own two cents’ worth.

In the end, you concede that everyone is justified to make their own decisions and live by their ramifications, whether or not you agree. So you open your mouth and cleverly say:

Are you stumped for words?

Never.

What would you say?

Shrug and say: I wash my hands of this?

Sniff and say: It’s naught to me.

Or, being the liberal thinker that you are, you simply say:

To each his own

And have done with it.

There we go.

To each his own

To each his own

To each his own

Throw it into a conversation whenever you want to cut it short because

1) You don’t want to discuss someone else’s shortcomings (knowing that yours may soon come under the microscope for scrutiny)

2) It’s a fruitless debate that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon

3) You really have nothing else to add

4) You’re going to miss the bus if you don’t start running now

And that, Folks, is a wrap.

PerfectlyWriteKids.com bids you a good week and reminds you to make your conversations and written work a bit more interesting and colourful.