Liliputin-4229

After Gettysburg were many of my enemies doomed to wait for decades in vain for the other shoe to drop ... "
Daniel Edgar  Sickles


Liliputins. What, the heck, is this?
http://stihi.ru/2021/11/24/7101

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wait for the other shoe to drop

Await a seemingly inevitable event,
be prepared for a further or consequential event or complication to occur.

 as in Now that she has a good enough job to leave her husband, we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop. This expression alludes to a person awakened by a neighbor who loudly dropped one shoe on the floor and is waiting for the second shoe to be dropped.

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Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop


Waiting for the other shoe to drop is an American idiom that dates back to the early 1900’s. It later found its way into British use but is heard much more often in America.

Meaning of Waiting for the Other Shoe To Drop
To wait for the other shoe to drop means to wait for an expected and inevitable event to occur. The event is most often negative. When this idiom is used, it is after some event has occurred and another event is expected to inevitably follow.

Examples Of Use
“My car started making a funny noise. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.” (I.E. for the car to break down).

“They laid off a couple of people at work today. Now we’re all just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

waiting for the other shoe to drop idiom meaning

Origin
This is a seemingly murky but actually straightforward idiom. When someone is taking off their shoes or boots, they tend to drop them on the floor. When one shoe drops, the other will inevitably follow. This expression probably has its origin in boarding or rooming houses of the early 1900s, where residents were crowded into multiple tiny rooms and the walls were thin, or from multi-floor apartment dwellings in cities like New York and Chicago, where one tenant’s bedroom was always directly underneath another.



So, when someone came home and took off their shoes, it would be normal to hear a thud when one shoe dropped, and then a second thud when the other shoe dropped.

You can imagine that when someone came home, perhaps a worker with heavy boots, they would sit on their bed or chair and take off their footwear. They take off their first shoe and let it drop to the floor where it makes quite a loud noise. Now imagine that the residents in other rooms hear this shoe drop, knowing exactly what it is. They then wait for “the other shoe to drop.” The resident, though, perhaps realizing what a loud noise he just made, places the second boot softly on the floor instead of dropping it. This leaves the other residents anticipating a noise that doesn’t come, but they keep waiting, not wanting to be caught unaware and startled.

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waiting for the other shoe to drop
Sources
She lives each day waiting for the other shoe to drop in terms of her daughter's health.
Comment
Der Satz ist aus dem Roman "My sister's keeper" von Jodi Picoult und es geht um eine Mutter deren Tochter an Leuk;mie erkrankt ist. Ich verstehe den Satz so: die Mutter rechnet t;glich mit dem Tod der Tochter.
Kennt jemand die genaue Bedeutung dieses Ausdrucks oder hat Picoult ihn sozusagen erfunden?
Author Bisou 28 Jan 08, 18:30
Comment
Ist eine relativ alte Geschichte, die in etwa so geht: Jemand hat einen Mitbewohner, der jeden Abend bei seiner R;ckkehr die Schuhe in die Ecke feuert. Sobald das geschehen ist, hat der Mitbewohner wieder Ruhe. Eines Abends h;rt er jedoch nur das Ger;usch eines Schuhes und wartet voller Unruhe 'for the second shoe to drop'.
#1 Author ;bs (337921) 28 Jan 08, 18:41
Comment
Ich habe das Gef;hl, dass Picoult den Ausdruck erfunden hat - ich be;tze ihn n;mlich recht h;ufig, ich finde ihn so passend, aber meist wissen die Leute nicht, wovon ich rede. :-(
#2 Author ;tchen (388131) 28 Jan 08, 18:54
Sources
It's my theory that "waiting for the other shoe to drop" is a phenomenon experienced by apartment dwellers. A person in the upstairs apartment is preparing for bed. He sits on the bed, takes off Shoe No. 1 and lets it drop on the uncarpeted floor. ... If there is a long pause after Shoe No. 1 drops, the downstairs people are stuck "waiting for the other shoe to drop."
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/11/m...

Amer. Heritage Dict. of Idioms:
Await a seemingly inevitable event, as in Now that she has a good enough job to leave her husband, we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop. This expression alludes to a person awakened by a neighbor who loudly dropped one shoe on the floor and is waiting for the second shoe to be dropped. [Early 1900s]
http://www.answers.com/topic/wait-for-the-oth...

NOAD:
shoe - ...
wait for the other shoe to drop - [informal] be prepared for a further or consequential event or complication to occur.

Comment
Strangely enough, the usual sources don't seem to explain the meaning very well.

When you're just waiting for the other shoe to drop, it means you're half expecting something negative to happen suddenly. You have the feeling that things are actually going surprisingly well right now, but you also suspect that it's too good to last.

So I would suggest something like

Es ist zu schoen, um wahr zu sein / lange anzuhalten / so zu bleiben.


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Daniel Edgar Sickles (October 20, 1819 – May 3, 1914) was an American politician, soldier, and diplomat.

Born to a wealthy family in New York City, Sickles was involved in a number of scandals, most notably the 1859 homicide of his wife's lover, U.S. Attorney Philip Barton Key II, whom Sickles gunned down in broad daylight in Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House. He was acquitted after using temporary insanity as a legal defense for the first time in United States history.

Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Sickles became one of the war's most prominent political generals, recruiting the New York regiments that became known as the Excelsior Brigade in the Army of the Potomac. Despite his lack of military experience, he served as a brigade, division, and corps commander in some of the early Eastern campaigns. His military career ended at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, after he moved his III Corps without orders to an untenable position, where they suffered 40% casualties but slowed General James Longstreet's flanking maneuver. Sickles himself was wounded by cannon fire at Gettysburg and had to have his leg amputated. He was eventually awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.

Sickles devoted considerable effort to trying to gain credit for helping achieve the Union victory at Gettysburg, writing articles and testifying before Congress in a manner that denigrated the intentions and actions of his superior officer, Maj. Gen. George Meade. After the war, Sickles was appointed as a commander for military districts in the South during Reconstruction. He also served as U.S. Minister to Spain under President Ulysses S. Grant. Later he was re-elected to Congress, where he helped pass legislation to preserve the Gettysburg Battlefield.