The problem with a metaphor is that you need to be aware of your audience and be careful to use a comparison that the target audience is likely to be able to relate to. I am sure there are other idioms that apply to this scenario but there are many metaphors at our disposal. Moment of truth and It’s showtime both allude to a reveal, which is still exciting and inspires anticipation but is past or present tense of the deadline, so less about the preparation or the amount of time that is left. The butcher is probably not going to wait a whole hour before chopping.In the Eleventh Hour is similar to the previous phrases, still with a close but not literally fixed deadline, without the same immediacy. It's crunch time people! We're in the final straight but I don't want this one to come down to the wire! To help put some of these phrases into context, I am guilty of over-using pep talks like this as we approach the end of a milestone or a competitive sport: crunch time is also used to describe scenarios of high pressure that might not necessarily be associated with a deadline, it is more of a statement of the current situation and less about what might be coming.crunch and chop are great verbs if you want to emphasise risk of failure to meet the deadline.I like It's crunch time however this implies a more imminent and yet less predictable deadline, which is similar to being on the chopping block. Thus, as the riders approached the finish line, they could be described as coming down to the wire, quite literally.ĭifferent subject domains and the urgency or likelihood of meeting the deadline will lend themselves to different phrases. This was especially useful in races that were very close towards the end. It’s believed this expression originates from horse racing, but why? Because in horse races, a wire was often hung across the finish line in order to help determine the winner. The phrase down to the wire means that there is a tense situation in a competition where the outcome is only clear at or near the end. ( idiomatic) In the final steps or decisive phase of an undertaking, especially one which has been lengthy or laborious.Įspecially : unsettled until the very end In swimming competition, as a swimmer nearly reaches a wall to turn or to finish, the competitor might take a shorter stroke to start the turn smoothly, or to finish faster. Wiktionary also adds that it can be an allusion to golf or swimming and provides the etymology and the definition as below:Įtymology: Possibly an allusion to painting, in which a painter typically finishes a work with short, careful, finishing strokes of the paint brush, or to golf, in which a player concludes each hole by making short strokes with a putter. It reminds me of Bob Ross where he paints twigs and sticks at the end of his paintings, whether on the happy trees or within the nature that you can see in almost all his paintings. A painter starts painting on a clean canvas using large or broad strokes of the brush but as the painting progresses, the strokes become shorter and finer where the painter fill the details into the painting. Another colorful idiomatic expression is down to the short strokes as it appears to be an allusion to painting.
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