see his last gum tree
- idiom
- Australian
:
ver su último árbol de goma
- If the company doesn't improve its finances soon, it will have seen its last gum tree.
Examples
-
After the accident, it seemed that Tom had seen his last gum tree and would never race again.
-
After the scandal, the politician is definitely going to see his last gum tree.
-
The coach knew he had seen his last gum tree when the team lost every game that season.
-
You will see his last gum tree soon!
-
After the accident, it seemed that Tom had seen his last gum tree and would never race again.
-
If the company doesn't improve its finances soon, it will have seen its last gum tree.
-
The coach knew he had seen his last gum tree when the team lost every game that season.
Antonyms
How Finished
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal meanings of 'see', 'his', 'last', 'gum', and 'tree' do not compose naturally to yield 'to be finished or done for' — a learner would interpret a concrete act of seeing a final tree rather than an end-of-career idiom. 'Gum tree' is a regionally specific cultural reference (e.g., eucalyptus) and the phrase appears idiomatic; the link to death/termination is not predictable from the constituents and is unlikely to be transparent cross-linguistically. Therefore the expression would be opaque to an average B1 learner who only knows the component words.
Etymology
See his last gum tree may come from old Australian bush life. One popular story says that when a traveler could only see the last gum tree before the wild country, it meant they had reached the end of the road. So the phrase came to mean 'finished' or 'done for'.