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Expression: Go Figure
Go figure is an expression people use when they think something is puzzling, surprising, unusual or even stupid.
If you listen carefully, you can hear people worldwide say this when talking about decisions made by politicians.
Recent news in Japan is that the government will purchase 100 more F-35 fighter jets from the United States of America.
The government will also increase the retirement age to 70 years of age.
The reason behind the age increase is that the pension system is running out of money.
Hmm.
There is not enough money to pay pensions, but they can find ￥1,000,000,000,000 (trillion) to purchase warplanes.
Go figure!
There you go.
That’s how you use it.
When something puzzles you, or you can’t see its logic, you can say, go figure.
Similar expressions would be ‘Imagine that!’, ‘Fancy that!’ or ‘Can you believe that?’
Another ongoing and devastating news story is that a man is suspected of killing six people and then himself in a countryside area of Miyazaki Prefecture.
At the moment, I can’t tell you the reasoning behind it, but it’s probably due to some financial stress or stress at home.
A little seven-year-old girl was murdered.
Her grandparents, brother and a family friend were also killed.
What can you say to that?
Nothing.
It’s surprising, shocking, puzzling and crushing at the same time.
The only thing you can do is say a little prayer for their souls followed by go figure.
I use go figure daily when it comes to website or email design.
Sometimes, things refuse to link up, or I cannot achieve my desired design.
I can’t understand why, even though I know it should be an easy fix.
It can probably be corrected with a click or two or a short line of code.
The problem is what to click or what line of code to write.
Go figure.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 73.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.