Talk:come down the pike

come down the pike
This is synonymous with and occurs with about the same frequency as come down the road and come down the line at COCA in this figurative sense, an expression of the basic metaphor of time as a road. BTW, pike is US for turnpike. If these or other similar formulations of the metaphor aren't used in other varieties of English, then the expression (and probably the synonyms) should stay). DCDuring TALK 01:55, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * It is also misunderstood as come down the pipe sometimes, and the adjective/participle form is much more common. FWIW. ~ lexicógrafo | háblame ~ 12:32, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * And "pipeline" as well, especially in business. The idea of a "sales pipeline": lead, qualified prospect, need identification, internal approval, budget inclusion, order placement, shipment, delivery, installation, acceptance, commission check, probably contributes to this kind of alternative construction. It doesn't do much violence to the semantics at least. DCDuring TALK 15:37, 25 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I think I (3.0) disagree with myself (2.0). "Up the pike" doesn't appear at COCA except literally. come down the pike constitutes 103 or the 150 instances of down the pike. To me down the pike seems more like a variant of down the road:. Perhaps the archaic term pike: makes this idiomatic. It also is not used much outside the US. DCDuring TALK 10:13, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

kept, no consensus for deletion -- Liliana • 16:03, 29 July 2011 (UTC)