Coming to a head?

Reader question:

This sentence comes from a story about the American TV series Desperate House Wives: Susan and Mike’s financial worries have come to a head. What does it mean exactly?

My comments:

It’s about time they started doing something about their finances. That’s one thing, the important thing.

Like Rome, their financial woes were not built in one day. That’s the one other thing we can safely infer from situations where things have come to a head.

Or, to use a similar expression, they have come to a boil.

Yeah, like, boiling water.

Say, you’re warming milk on the oven. Watch the milk starting to swell as temperatures rise. That’s when it’s coming to the boil, meaning water is coming to a boiling point. You must do something about it now, i.e., turning off the heat – or milk will be spilling out everywhere pretty soon.

Yeah, that’s the idea of how things come to a head.

The “head” in the phrase “coming to the head” refers to the head – tip or top – of a boil.

Here, the “boil” has nothing to do with water or milk. Instead, it refers to a pimple.

For boils to come to a head, though, the process is similar to boiling water.

Boils or pimples, the tiny swollen affections under the skin, form after, say, eating meaty and greasy foods such as having the hot mutton pot in early winter. When boils first come into being, the skin still looks smooth but if you touch the red spots, you’ll be able to feel the tiny swellings underneath, and they can be excruciatingly painful to touch.

It takes time, one or two days, for the boils to ripen or mature, when they form into “heads”. This is the time to do something about them effectively, such as simply popping them open.

Actually, boils from eating meaty foods will go away by themselves after they mature. The “heads” will turn into scabs and fall off like leaves off a tree. That is to say, the best action when boils have come to a head is to leave them alone.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.