Reader's question:  

A prominent forecaster predicted that the economy would be "off and running" next year.

Could you explain "off and running"?

My comments:

"Off and running" is apparently borrowed from racing. When a race is started, participants, be they horses, dogs or people, are seen to be getting "off" their feet and "running". The idiom hence means that the race has successfully begun and everything is "running" smoothly.

Figuratively speaking, therefore, to say something is "off and running" is to say that it's making a good start and progressing well.

To say the economy would be "off and running" next year is, of course, to suggest that it will grow more rapidly than it's been doing for the past few years, hopefully with many of its current problems (unemployment, for instance) resolved.

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

Zhang Xin 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.