A Picture Saying
Read the puzzle
A night-sky picture shows a large, glowing blue full moon above calm water, with stars scattered around it and its light reflected on the water. Written across the middle of the blue moon, in large white capital letters, is the single word ONCE. Which well-known English saying does this picture show?
Which saying does this picture show?
Say where the word is, and what it is in.
ONCE IN A BLUE MOON
The word ONCE sits in a blue moon. The saying means very rarely.
How to solve it
Picture sayings work by describing where a word sits and what it sits in, then reading that description aloud.
Step one: name what you see. There is one word, ONCE. It is placed inside a moon, and the moon is coloured blue.
Step two: turn the layout into a phrase. ONCE is in a blue moon, so the picture reads ONCE IN A BLUE MOON.
Step three: check that the phrase is a real saying. It is: once in a blue moon means very rarely, as in something that hardly ever happens.
The usual wrong answers come from focusing on the sky instead of the word's position, such as OVER THE MOON or a FULL MOON reading. Neither uses the word ONCE, and a good picture saying uses every part of the picture. The blue colour is the key detail; without it you would only have once in a moon.
Takeaway: for any picture saying, say aloud the word, the preposition that describes its position (in, over, under, between), and the thing it is placed in.
