the.com/touch and go
Uncertain enough that even optimists are quietly Googling backup plans.
means A situation so precarious or uncertain that the outcome could go either way at any moment.
from First recorded in the early 1800s, likely from coaching or sailing jargon — a carriage wheel that grazed an obstacle without crashing, or a ship's keel that brushed the seabed without running aground. Either way, the image is the same: contact made, disaster barely avoided, and nobody quite sure how. By the 19th century it had drifted ashore into general use for anything hanging precariously in the balance.
- origin
- ships grazing seabed without sinking, 1800s sailors
- aviation sense
- landing then taking off again without stopping
- usage
- means outcome unresolved, risk still live