Talk:go figure

I've always thought of go figure as a sarcastic term...


 * same, I edited that in, I can't recall hearing this used literally...is that alright? MikeMatyMatta (talk) 13:13, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

This was labelled as US term. Doesn't seem like it to me.

But at the same time, it seems to be a special case of "go" as a bare-infinitive catenative verb. Though I've never been sure what exactly "go" means used in this way.... — Smjg (talk) 22:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Like "go ask Alice". This still sounds American to me too. Equinox ◑ 22:57, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
 * @Smjg: I don't think go and come are fully realized as bare-infinitive catenative verbs. Neither works catenatively except in their own bare forms. DCDuring TALK 19:11, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Hard to translate
Just want to add that translating this expression, at least to some languages, proves very hard. Should we not do it? Should we approximate? Should we list many alternatives? Explain what they all mean literally? Redirct them to a place where there are translation for a similar term (... can't think of any right now ...)?

Also, BTW, I added four possible translations for Norwegian, the only one with multiple translations, and I realise this is (probably) too much, but I dunno what else I could do. I'd appreciate if people had ideas or knew of "fixes", so to speak.