Idiom 115 – Swings and roundabouts

My company is trying hard to save money. In one attempt to cut costs, we outsourced our IT department to an overseas service provider. But we have had to spend so much time explaining every little detail and dealing with language problems. In the end, it costs us as much as we saved by moving the IT staff off our payroll. It’s swings and roundabouts (gehupft wie gesprungen), really.

Swings and roundaboutsThis common British idiom comes from the longer phrase: „What you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts“ and is based on a poem by Irish writer Patrick Reginald Chalmers. It conjures the image of two fairground rides – the roundabout (similar to a carousel) and the swing. Both move without any actual change in location, they return to where they started. This image now stands for losses balanced by gains.