Narrow Down and In The Offing.

He's narrowed down his options of what to next to just playing!

Today's verbal phrase is Narrow Down, which means:

To reduce a list of possibilities from many to a selected few.  

We can narrow the choice down to green or red.
I am not sure which university to apply to, but I have narrowed my list down to three.
I cannot narrow down the rules for this game.  It is complex and you will simply just have to play it and lose a few times before you understand its finer points.

Synonyms:pin down, nail down, narrow, peg down, specify, determine

Today's idiom is In The Offing.  It means:

An event that is imminent or likely to occur soon in the near or immediate future

With exams finished and graduation in the offing, the students enthusiastically celebrated.

Plans for a new highway through this are are in the offing.

Jack: I thought that we were going to get a new copier?  Jill: It's in the offing. It will probably arrive sometime next month.

 

Origin

 

This another one of the many phrases of nautical origin. It is quite simple to understand once you know that 'the offing' is the part of the sea that can be seen from land, excluding those parts that are near the shore.  Someone who was watching out for a ship to arrive would first see it approaching when it was 'in the offing' and expected to dock before the next tide. Something that is 'in the offing' isn't happening now or even in a minute or two, but will inevitably happen before long. The phrase has migrated from its naval origin into general use in the language and is now used to describe any event that is imminent. 'The offing', although more usually used in the context of ships arriving, derives from the adjective 'off',