The Grand Finale

There comes a time where all good things must end. We are officially pausing operations, closing up shop. It has been a pleasure to deliver these punchy expressions every Friday for the last year and some change. If you learned even one new expression, that made it worth it for us.

But it’s not a goodbye…it’s a see you later. Stay tuned for what’s to come 📖

I. Swan song 🦢

There is a belief that when a swan is on its last legs, it sings a beautiful song with its final breath. One last act to be remembered by.

Aesop made it famous. In his fable, a swan is mistaken for a goose and is on its way to become supper, until it opens its throat and sings, revealing its true nature and saving its life. And like many phrases, it was solidified in the English language by way of the Shakespearean stamp in both The Merchant of Venice and Othello years later.

Now it means the curtail call, the last hurrah. Jeter’s walk off, the Beatles and Abbey Road.

II. Last hurrah 🎉 

It’s what you say when something’s wrapping up, one last go, one final send-off before it’s all over.

But “hurrah” didn’t start as some sentimental goodbye. It was a battle cry. Soldiers would yell it together as they charged, loud and aggressive, trying to fire themselves up and rattle whoever was across from them.

Over time, it drifted out of the battlefield and into celebrations, wins, big moments. Kobe chucking 50 shots in his final game to end his career with a 60 point game.

It’s that final burst before the end. Not just going out… going out with something left in the tank.

III. Toll the Bell 🔔

Back in medieval England, churches would ring bells for the dead. But, like most phrases from that era, they replaced ring with a different, more eloquent term - toll.

Slow, deliberate, one strike at a time. Each hit announced a death to the parish. The number of tolls told you the age of the deceased. John Donne wrote “never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”. A reminder that every death diminishes you. Hemingway then borrowed it for a book title, cementing its history.

Now it’s shorthand for inevitability. It’s the moment you realize the reorg email is about your department.

Keep on sending on. Forward to a friend, one final time.