My sentence is:
There is a rule that you must come to training unless....?
I need something like 'pigs flying outside the window' but more formal.
-
2Training is tomorrow morning at 5am, come hell or high water.– Dan BronCommented Mar 14, 2016 at 21:01
-
1Or the slightly less-formal-but-still-sort-of-formal "Training is tomorrow morning at 5am unless hell freezes over".– John CliffordCommented Mar 14, 2016 at 21:04
-
Thankyou. I quite like all of these ideas - I don't know which one to use now.– PumpkinpeachCommented Mar 14, 2016 at 21:18
-
Unless you win first prize in Powerball and split it 50/50 with me.– Hot LicksCommented Mar 14, 2016 at 21:29
-
What's more formal than pigs flying? Of course it does probably depend on the pigs.– DrewCommented Mar 14, 2016 at 22:10
|
Show 1 more comment
2 Answers
If you wanted to be literary, you could say,
There is a rule that you must come to training unless Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come.
It sounds formal, anyway.
answered Mar 14, 2016 at 21:14
Not really answering the question, here, but if you say something like "should something bad happen to X..." and then say "knock on wood" (implied that it's in brackets, as an aside, and probably written in brackets in non-fiction; not sure if you would write that part in brackets in prose, but my editing teacher would say that's grammatically incorrect, most likely). Then you actually rap your hand on a piece of wood for good luck. It dispels the bad luck that would, superstitiously, befall X by you saying it.
To answer your question, I personally say "Apocalypse pending". Because I write a lot of apocalyptic fiction.
