Winning English - Mastering Idioms, Slang, and References
Fits the bill • Thankless job • Strong-arm tactics • Save for a rainy day
This past August, the director-general of the World Trade Organization, or WTO, resigned. The organization still hasn’t chosen a new leader. Meanwhile, people are promoting their favorite candidates for the job. In fact, here’s the headline from one article: “Why one of three African candidates fits the bill as the new head of the WTO”.
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“Fits the bill” is an idiom that means “meets all of the requirements” or “is the best choice”. The word “bill” has specific meanings - like dollar bill or the ticket that shows much money you owe - but very generally, “bill” can mean any piece of paper. “Fits the bill” seems to come from the world of theater. In the past, a theater would list all of the entertainers in a show on a “bill”. If the theater needed a specific kind of act, like a singer, and found one, it was said that she “fit the bill.” According to one researcher, it used to be “fill the bill”, but no one really says that, anymore.
I would understand if no one would want to be the leader of the WTO right now. It’s likely to be a thankless job, given the strong-arm tactics of the United States and China during their trade war.
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A “thankless job” is a job in which you will only get criticized, no matter how much good you try to do. Generally, thankless jobs are important and need to get done, but that doesn’t mean anyone will say thank you if you do it.
To “strong-arm” means to coerce or to force someone to do something using their power or strength. If you have a “strong arm”, you can make people do what you want. “Strong-arm tactics” are coercive acts that powerful people use to get what they want.
In an earlier post, I talked about how it was a rule of thumb that you should have three months of savings in the bank for emergencies. Another way to say that is: “It’s important to save for a rainy day”.
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According to a couple of sources, this idiom has been around hundreds of years. In this saying, “rainy days” are bad days, while “sunny days” are good days. So, the idea is that you should save resources - usually money - so that you can survive bad days in the future. Many governments and organizations have special accounts called “rainy day funds”. These are special savings that they don’t spend unless times are really bad.
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