Seal someone’s fate
Today’s expression is a good one—seal someone’s fate; or seal something’s fate. When something seals a person’s fate—or a thing’s fate—it is certain that the person or thing will fail or die. Do you remember Le Grand K? The former official measure of a kilogram? The new definition sealed its fate—Le Grand K will still exist, as a museum piece, but will not serve its historical function as the official measure. The new definition sealed its fate; now that we have the new definition, the old prototype kilogram is not necessary anymore. It is definitely done; retired.
We just had elections here in the United States and some of them were pretty close. In Florida, they had to re-count the ballots for governor. The candidate that was ever so slightly behind was hoping the recount would show he won. But the results of the recount sealed his fate: he definitely lost after all votes were counted a second time.
Here in Chicago, our ice hockey team had had the same coach for a long time. He guided the team to three league championships, but the team missed the postseason last year. He was on thin ice—that’s a good expression to know—he was on thin ice; the team’s bosses were already a little disappointed in how things were going lately. But the team started this year with a number of losses, and that tough early record sealed the coach’s fate: the team fired him about a month into the current season.
Now that I think about it, I want to say that you use “seal someone’s fate” when the person or thing is trending toward failure, but one last thing makes it certain. I think that can apply to all three examples I gave, right? The prototype physical kilogram was probably not going to last forever since any physical object loses a little mass every year, no matter how small. Now that scientists took the final vote on its replacement, its fate is sealed. It was always going to happen, but the final vote makes it official. And in the case of the re-count election: the candidate who lost was trailing after the first vote count, so it was unlikely that he would win. When the final recount came in, it made it official; it sealed his fate. It was always likely that he would lose, but the final recount sealed his fate.
Thanks for being with us today. Remember to explore the English learning resources at MosaLingua by going to PlainEnglish.com/learn. JR and I will be back later this week for the Thursday edition of Plain English.
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