To have one’s work cut out for you comes from an earlier phrase to have all one’s work cut out. Picture a tailor who’s working as fast as possible with the help of an assistant who’s cutting out the pieces to be sewn. If you have your work cut out for you, you have a big job ahead, with a series of smaller tasks coming at you faster than you can do them. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “To Have Your Work Cut Out For You”
Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.
Hello.
Hi, who’s this?
This is Adam Singleton. I’m from Abilene, Texas.
Hey, Adam. Welcome to the show.
Hi, Adam.
I was thinking about the phrase, having your work cut out for you.
And I always imagine that means that your work is going to be easier because it’s cut out for you.
It sounds like part of that task is already done.
But one of the things that I’ve heard is that your task is actually going to be harder.
So I’m confused about whether it means your task is going to be easier or harder and kind of really what it means and where it comes from.
This expression goes all the way back to the early 1600s in an earlier version, which is to have all one’s work cut out.
And the idea is if you’re a tailor and you’re making a suit or something, you have all of your work, all of your material cut out for you before you start to sew things together.
So there’s an assistant who is stacking up this work that you have to turn into garments.
And the whole idea is that they get ahead of you.
Yeah.
And that you’ve got everything all planned out and you start out organized.
And then somebody is cutting the material out for you, for you to sew together.
It’s interesting that it has those two senses that you’re talking about, that work is sort of piling up on you, which would happen if you’re a tailor and the assistant is cutting out all this material for you.
Like literally cutting stuff out for you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So it’s like you’ve got the work ahead of you, but they’re also cutting it for you.
Yeah.
So that’s helping, too.
So I can see where you get the two different senses of it.
So somehow you don’t have control.
That’s kind of a mix.
Yeah.
You don’t have control over the work that’s coming, basically, right?
Right.
Yeah.
It’s coming at you.
Coming at you.
Sort of like Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory.
Yeah, yeah.
With the conveyor belt.
All right.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
That explains why I heard, you know, it sounds like from context it would be an easier job or a harder job.
Someone’s doing work for you, but it also means you have more work ahead.
Thanks, Adam. We appreciate your call.
Yes, thank you. I love the show.
Thank you. Take care.
Thanks. Bye-bye.
Bye.
Language English has got some stuff from some strange places.
