Reader's question:

“Shoo” is the sound one makes when they herd, say, chickens, to the coop. As verb, people are said to shoo donkeys away from the lawn, shoo cattle and sheep out to graze, and shoo all of them back into the barn for the night.

Shoo-in as a noun refers to a clear winner and that is believed to have come from the sport of horse racing. If a horse is so fast that you’re absolutely sure that it’s gonna win, you say it is a shoo-in because all you need to do is shoo him across the finish line and into the barn – in other words, he’d win effortlessly.

For persons, if they are considered a shoo-in, they’re readily picked as comfortable winners in a race or for a certain job.

Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.