failure

See Also: BUSINESS; GROWTH; PAST, THE

1. The anatomy of the first major success is like the young human body, a miracle only the owner can fully savor —John Fowles
2. As he rose like a rocket, he fell like a stick —Thomas Paine
3. A certain prosperity coats these people like scent or the layer of buttery light in a painting by Rubens —Jean Thompson
4. A conqueror, like a cannon ball, must go on; if he rebounds, his career is over —The Duke of Wellington
5. (The midlist author is) dogged by his past sales record, like a utility infielder with a .228 lifetime batting average —Phillip Lopate, New York Times Book Review, May 24, 1987
6. Failed … like an old hanging bridge —Marge Piercy
7. Fail like a five-year plan —Derek Lambert
8. Failure grabs a man like an old and shabby suit —Derek Lambert
9. (A great beauty) flourishing like a rose —Isak Dinesen
10. Flourishing like a weed in a hot house —Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
11. Flourishing like trees —Hilma Wolitzer
12. Had risen to his great height like a man lifted to the ceiling by a sort of slow explosion —G. K. Chesterton
13. High office is like a pyramid; only two kinds of animals reach the summit, reptiles and eagles —Jean Le Rond d’Alembert
14. His life, day after day, was failing like an unreplenished stream —Percy Bysshe Shelley
15. Moving up hand over hand … like a champion —Tom Wolfe
16. Pursued success as a knight the Holy Grail —Anon

    See Also: PERSISTENCE

17. Sailed through the world like a white yacht jubilant with flags —John Gardner
18. Selling like lemonade at a track meet —T. Coraghessan Boyle
19. Sell like hotcakes —Anon

    Different industries have coined many phrases for things which sell well. This American simile which came into use in the middle of the nineteenth century is still the most widely used. For a twist in meaning there’s “Selling like cold hot cakes” from The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley.

20. Sold [books by nineteenth century author Karl May] like pancakes topped by wild blueberries and heavy cream —Vincent Canby, New York Times, June 25, 1986
21. Sold like picks and pans in a gold rush —Robert Guenther, Wall Street Journal, August 6, 1986
22. Success is as ice cold and lonely as the North Pole —Vicki Baum

    See Also: ALONENESS

23. Success is feminine and like a woman, if you cringe before her, she will override you —William Faulkner

    Faulkner expanded on this simile still further: “So the way to treat her is to show her the back of your hand. Then maybe she will do the crawling.”

24. Success on some men looks like a borrowed coat; it sits on you as though it had been made to order —Edith Wharton
25. Triumphs like a trumpet —Wallace Stevens
26. Wanted his success acknowledged … like the high school loser who dreams of driving to the class reunion in a custom-made sports car —Jean Thompson
27. Winning an Oscar … it’s like getting thirty thousand red roses at one time —Louise Fletcher, from Rex Reed interview
28. Wore his success like his health —George Garrett

(See alsoDOWNFALL, IRRETRIEVABILITY.)

back to the drawing board An acknowledgment that an enterprise has failed and that one must begin again from scratch, at the initial planning stages. The drawing board in question is the type used by draftsmen, architects, engineers, etc., for blueprints and such schematic designs. A similar phrase is back to square one, by analogy to a games board. Its meaning is the same—“We’ve got to start all over, from the very beginning.”

bite the dust See DEATH.

[one’s] cake is dough One’s project or undertaking has failed, one’s expectations or hopes have come to naught; one never has any luck. A cake which comes out of the oven as dough is clearly a total failure. Shakespeare used this now obsolete proverbial expression in The Taming of the Shrew (V, i):

damp squib An enterprise that was to have been a great success, but fizzled out; a lead balloon; a dud. In this British colloquialism, squib is another name for a firecracker. If it is damp, it will not explode as expected. It may fizzle or, in some cases, turn out to be a dud.

flash in the pan An instant but short-lived success; a brief, intense effort that yields no significant results; a failure after an impressive beginning. This expression refers to the occasional misfiring of the old flintlock rifles which caused a flash, or sudden burst of flame, as the gunpowder in the pan burned instead of exploding and discharging a bullet. The expression appears in an 1802 military dictionary edited by Charles James:

go belly up See DEATH.

goose egg A term used figuratively for lack of success in any endeavor; an instance of not scoring or of missing a point, so-called from the slang term for the numeral “0.” As far back as the 14th century, things were compared to goose eggs because of a similarity in shape and size. By the mid-1800s, the term was used in scoring at athletic contests.

Goose egg can also be used as a verb.

go up in smoke To come to naught, to be wasted or futile; to be unsuccessful, to fail or flop; also to end up in smoke and other variants.

Use of this self-evident expression dates from the 17th century.

lay an egg To flop or bomb, especially when performing before an audience; to fail miserably. During World War I, lay an egg was Air Force terminology for ‘drop a bomb,’ egg probably being associated with bomb because of its similar shape. In addition, egg or goose egg is common slang for ‘zero, cipher,’ also because of their similar shapes. Thus, to lay an egg is ‘to bomb’ (figuratively), or to produce a large zero, i.e., nothing in terms of a favorable response from an audience, supervisor, or other persons evaluating a performance.

lead balloon A failure, fiasco, or flop; an attempt to entertain or communicate that fails to elicit a desirable response. This phrase is relatively new, having appeared in print no earlier that the mid-1900s. Lead balloon was originally heard in the verb phrase to go over like a lead balloon, an obvious hyperbolic expression for failing miserably. Today the phrase is used alone substantively or adjectivally. Thus, a joke, plan, etc., can be called a “lead balloon.”

lemon An object of inferior quality; a dud; something that fails to meet expectations. This expression alludes to the lemons painted on the reels of slot machines or “one-armed bandits.” Whenever a lemon appears on one of the reels, regardless of what appears on the other reels, the gambler automatically loses his money. Lemon was in popular use by 1905, less than ten years after slot machines were invented. The expression remains almost ubiquitous, particularly in its most common current application, i.e., in reference to automobiles which experience almost constant mechanical difficulties.

See also one-armed bandit, NICKNAMES.

lose one’s shirt To be financially devastated. This common expression implies that a shirt is the last of one’s possessions to be lost in a financial upheaval.

a miss is as good as a mile A proverb implying that it does not matter how close one comes to hitting or attaining a goal, a near miss is still a miss, a near success is still a failure, etc. This expression is probably a corruption of an earlier, more explicit adage, “An inch in a miss is as good as an ell.” (An ell is a unit of measurement; in England, 45 inches.) It has also been suggested that the original expression was “Amis is as good as Amile,” alluding to two of Charlemagne’s soldiers who were both heroes, both martyrs, and both saints—thus, to many people, they were virtually indistinguishable.

miss the boat To miss out on something by arriving too late, to lose an opportunity or chance; to fail to understand; also to miss the bus. These phrases bring to mind the image of someone arriving at the dock or bus stop just in time to see the boat or bus leaving without him. Although both expressions date from approximately the early part of this century, to miss the boat is by far the more common.

my Venus turns out a whelp See REVERSAL.

take a bath To be ruined financially, to lose everything, to go to the cleaners; usually used in reference to a specific financial venture. This figurative American slang use of to take a bath, meaning ‘to be stripped of all one’s possessions,’ plays on one’s physical nakedness when bathing.

washed out To have met with failure or financial ruin; disqualified from social, athletic, or scholastic pursuits. One theory suggests that this phrase originated as an allusion to the former military custom of whitewashing a target after shooting practice, but the connection is difficult to discern. In modern usage, this expression is often applied in an athletic context to one who, because of injury or inferior ability, can no longer compete. In addition, the expression often implies a total depletion of funds.

wither on the vine To fail to mature, develop, or reach fruition; to die aborning; to go unused, to be wasted. The expression describes lost opportunity, unrealized ambitions or talents, unfulfilled plans, etc. It often implies negligence or oversight; if such had been properly tended and nourished, they would have blossomed. An obvious antecedent of the expression appeared in the 17th century: