Jientje at Heaven Is In Belgium hosts A Thousand Words In Idioms wherein she asks participants to illustrate an idiom with a photo:
As long as people have been around, they have tried to communicate with each other. As a means of getting the message across as clearly as possible, idioms and sayings have found their way into our language. Now, because “a picture paints a thousand words”, I thought it would be nice to make this a photo challenge. The idea is to choose an idiom, or a saying, ( even slang is allowed) and illustrate it with a picture. If “language is the dress of thoughts” ( Johnson), then idioms must the wardrobe …
There aren’t too many for Q. It will be even more interesting than usual to see what everyone comes up with for it! The only thing that came to my mind was
Quit while you’re ahead.
That wouldn’t be good advice for a race. For that you shouldn’t quit til you get to the finish line. But “quit while you’re ahead” means to stop if continuing on would only make the situation worse. I’ve heard it used in the context of saying something that came out wrong, and the more you try to correct or explain it, the worse it gets, so you “quit while you’re ahead.” Or if you’re working on some kind of project and keep seeing ways to fiddle with it or it keeps leading to other projects, at some point you have to “quit while you’re ahead” and bring it to an end.
For R I chose:
Red-letter day.
A “red-letter” day is an important one that you want to commemorate or remember, a day on which something special happened or will happen. The Wikipedia article about red-letter days says it originated in Medieval times when illuminated manuscripts had some capital letters and highlighted words in red; then holy days were printed on church calendars in red. In our family’s calendar, two red-letter days are on the 21st, but in different months — my birthday and my anniversary. 
May you enjoy the red-letter days on your calendar! And head over to Jiente’s to see what illustrated idioms others have come up with.
12 Comments
July 8, 2009 at 9:20 am
Great idioms! I completely forgot about red letter day.
July 8, 2009 at 9:26 am
Love your idioms and shots, particularly the sense of motion on the first one, it’s fantastic!!
Didn’t know about the red letter day , now I am wiser
July 8, 2009 at 11:04 am
You picked two I had never heard of before, and I like them both! I love the sense of movement in the first picture, lovely! Thanks for playing, you did a great job, and I have learned something new again today!
July 8, 2009 at 11:06 am
Oops, almost the same comment as Mar’s! Our minds do seem to think alike today!
July 8, 2009 at 11:38 am
That first photo is great. Almost made me sick to my stomach.
Great idioms. My red-letter day is any day when I’m not working.
July 8, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Great idioms. Love the first one. Very clever. And the second one…you just happened to circle a day that means something to me how’s that LOL Excellent my friend.
July 8, 2009 at 5:11 pm
You are so clever, Barbara! And such a dedicated blogger! Great idioms and pictures! ((HUGS))
July 8, 2009 at 8:25 pm
I did not think of either one of these! And they are wonderful! You did them very well. I had heard a different story about the red-letter beginning — but now that I hear yours it makes MUCH more sense! The story I had heard had something to do with government checks and red letters on the envelope. So when they were delivered it was a red letter day… ??? Yours is much better! LOL!
July 8, 2009 at 8:44 pm
I like the idiom. I try to stick around until completion of a project but sometimes I get derailed…
July 8, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Hey, neat. Loved these! I never knew where “red letter day” came from. I love history, so THANKS!
Hugs.
July 9, 2009 at 8:33 pm
These are so great! I would never have been able to think of a “Q.”
July 9, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Two great idioms — and I love your race pic. That green car was movin’!