And talking about “a bear (or was it a bare) roaming the woods“… have you heard the saying “can’t see the wood for the trees”? In some cases people use forest instead of wood i.e “can’t see the forest for the trees”.
Where did the saying come from and what does it mean?
First off, the use of the word wood is British and the word forest is American.
Where Did It Come From?
According to The Phrase Finder the saying comes from:
This proverbial saying is first found in Sir Thomas More’s Confutacion of Tyndals Answere, 1533, in which More argued the case against the English cleric Robert Barnes, who he considered to be a heretic:
He might tell us that of Paul’s Church we may well see the stones, but we cannot see the church. And then we may well tell him again that he cannot see the wood for the trees.
— The Phrase Finder
What Does It Mean?
Basically by using this phrase you are saying that the person is so involved in the details that they do not see the big picture or the situation as a whole. For example: Mary was so focused on how the dinner was presented that she couldn’t see the wood for the tress when it came to having an enjoyable meal with some friends.
Your homework for today is to ponder on the saying “can’t see the wood (or forest) for the tress” and is there a situation where it applies to you. Is there something that you are only focusing on the minute details and as a result are missing the big picture? If so take a step back for a moment and ponder the bigger picture.
Ponder away!
