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Ted asks: Please explain “tinkering and tuning” as in this: “We’re fine. Just needs more tinkering and tuning, that’s all.” My comments: Tinkering is easier to understand. The tinker, who seems to have gone extinct in the city, by the way is the man who used to roam neighborhoods doing repairs for you on, say, your cooking pot with a hole. The tinker (noun) tinkers (verb) by filling the hole with some melt metal, hammer it even and hand you back a pot you can use again as of old – or, if you prefer, as if new. Tuning seems harder to understand, but is similar to tinkering. In fact, tuning is the same as fine tuning. In the old days, if you tune in (listen) to a radio, you have to dial for the signal by twisting a knob. By moving the knob clockwise or the other way round, you inch your way to the desired broadcast. Once you are, um, in tune (having located the signal), you start doing the “fine tuning”, that is, making finer (tiny) adjustments in order to get the best reception. In other words, you fine tune (verb) to achieve a fine tune (noun), or the best signal. In the example from the top sentence, “tinkering” and “tuning” are used together simply because, I think, they rhyme (both words beginning with the letter “t”). Anyways, you’ve got the picture, or tune. And you can fine tune, of course, not just the radio. You can fine tune a machine or a relationship, anything – by seeking and making small improvements in order to get the best result. | 
