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Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2009-04-16 16:01:07

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

have your hands cut out for him

A news correspondent, re the US first family and the new dog in the White House:

they have their hands cut out for him.

A similar but slightly different one I’d collected earlier:

Well, she’ll certainly have her hands cut out for her!

Also:

She’s got her hands full ahead of her.

Guess I’ll stop:

I’ve had my full.


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#2 2009-04-17 09:11:19

nilep
Eggcornista
Registered: 2007-03-21
Posts: 291

Re: have your hands cut out for him

It sounds like a blend of have one’s hands full and have one’s work cut out, but I’m struck by the mismatch between their and him in David’s first example.

I find 30 uGh for “hands cut out for”, most of which seem to be variants of the usage David spotted. Seven of ten hits on one page are that usage, two are other coincidental strings, and the last is Eggcorn Forum. Four of the seven “interesting” hits are discussing sports; I wonder if that is significant?

Scout.com: Protecting the franchise
This week I’ve got Paul Spicer, another good defensive end, so I’ve got my hands cut out for me.
http://pit.scout.com/2/716448.html

seattlepi.com blogs review comment
Now…regarding the Huskies they will have their hands cut out for them vs. Purdue who is somewhat like ASU in tempo.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/review.asp?en … tID=276467

Reggie Bush needs to get his girl in the gym
New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush, certainly has his hands cut out for him and full, when trying to get his girlfriend Kim Kardashian back into shape.
http://sonsofsimmons.com/blogroll/reggi … -gym/2008/

Note the reduced coordination in “his hands cut out for him and full”.

USS Tempest] “Qwirks ‘n Fixins’
As you can see you or we have our hands cut out for us. I would like the EMH reprogramed before we launch.
www.freelists.org/post/usstempest/Qwirk … ie-Le-Beau

By catch:

Take home project using the background pieces from the hands cut out for the tree quilt.
www.dragonflyquilts.com/newpage5.htm

If I had my hands cut out for playing the piano I’d pick up all of its notes and played them over and over.
www.stingus.net/forum/threads.php?id=1895_0_13_0_C

I’m not sure what to make of that last one.

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#3 2009-04-17 11:47:10

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: have your hands cut out for him

nilep wrote:

It sounds like a blend of have one’s hands full and have one’s work cut out, but I’m struck by the mismatch between their and him in David’s first example.

Yeah, I thought that was striking too. It seems likely that the him comes from have their hands full with him , though I’m not sure. It does seem pretty sure that the him in question was the dog. The second example follows the have X’s work cut out for X pattern. Those prepositional phrases, though they can be omitted in some usages, are clearly part of the idioms we’re dealing with.

Reggie Bush needs to get his girl in the gym
New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush, certainly has his hands cut out for him and full, when trying to get his girlfriend Kim Kardashian back into shape. […] ¶ Note the reduced coordination in “his hands cut out for him and full”.

Yes, that is a great one; sort of a slow-mo version of the blend in the process of happening (or at least that’s one way to look at it).

If I had my hands cut out for playing the piano I’d pick up all of its notes and played them over and over. ¶ I’m not sure what to make of that last one.

That one seems to me to be an extension of a different expression, “(person) (not) be cut out for (job)”. That one is for me a metaphor comparing the person to a two-dimensional shape (maybe of paper or of sheet metal), cut out in that shape for a certain purpose and therefore not well-suited for other uses. If I, and specifically my hands, are not cut out for piano playing, I will never be very good at it.

Last edited by DavidTuggy (2009-04-17 11:53:06)


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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#4 2009-04-17 18:33:08

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

Re: have your hands cut out for him

Sorry to cut in, but I’ve always seen “to be cut out for” as making reference to cattle or sheep ranching, where you cut certain animals out for … branding, for example. Upon a cutting horse.

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#5 2009-04-17 19:50:59

DavidTuggy
Eggcornista
From: Mexico
Registered: 2007-10-11
Posts: 2714
Website

Re: have your hands cut out for him

Well, I do know about cutting animals out from the herd, but never connected it (that I remember, which is of course an important caveat!) to ”(person) not be cut out for (job)”. If I say I’m not cut out for something I don’t mean I haven’t been selected for it, but rather that I’m not made/constituted so as to be good at it. So I always assumed it had to do with being cut out in a particular shape.
.
Fwiw my wife just confirmed my construal: she thinks of cutting cookies or cutting material for sewing: if you’re cut out to be a hat you will not make a good purse.
.
We’ve talked before about these under various names: the exact same words (both spoken and written) with an (almost) identical overall meaning, but different ways of getting to that meaning (= a kind of semantic reshaping). I guess I think of them as the true, really invisible “hidden eggcorns”. You only find out about them when somebody tells you what they were thinking and you suddenly realize, “Oh, that isn’t how I always thought of it.”
.
Gotta love ‘em.


*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .

(Possible Corollary: it is, and we are .)

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