Since the world of business is by its very nature competitive, it comes as no surprise that a lot of picturesque expressions are derived from sport. After all, men (still) rule both worlds. Therefore it is not uncommon to hear businessmen complaining about fierce competition. They might express their wish for the world of business to be a level playing field where the competition will be fair because no one will have special advantages. However, they definitely prefer the situation where they are ahead of their competition and feel an uncomfortable tension when they and their rival are neck and neck. If they manage to overtake them, they will reach the most desirable status when they are so far ahead of their competitors that it becomes a one horse race. Even then, they should keep eye on the ball so they don’t get thrown out of the driving seat especially by the government which can move the goalposts by changing the rules of the game. It is not difficult to imagine what confusion the moving of goalposts in the middle of a football game would cause and the same type of confusion accompanied by frustration obviously takes place in business.
The Poetic Side Of Business
The developments in the world of business tend to have dramatic consequences for the parties involved so they very often resort to expressions used in the art of war. Thus companies may get involved in a real takeover battle and the company which has been singled out as an easy target will try to defend itself.
When being straight forward, businessmen are impatient with people who beat about the bush. We hope you will not be in the situation to say you could not make head nor tail of this lesson – or in other words saying you simply couldn’t understand what it was all about.
Non-native speakers should be careful about using idioms. Since they frequently consist of several words and prepositions, it is difficult to get them right. So if you miss something, you will not impress the other side but rather embarrass yourself. For the time being we should just focus on understanding what is really meant by these perplexing phrases made up of heads, tails, cutting-throats, horses, bushes and the like.
