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Reader question: Please explain this sentence: He spoke as someone whose time has come. My comments: In other words, the speaker is full of confidence. If he were playing a tennis match, he spoke as if he would win. If he were running for public office, he spoke as if he would win. Whatever he’s doing, when he feels his time has come, he feels he’s going to win. He spoke as though it were just his turn to win. You sense a certain certainty or inevitability about it. In short, he spoke as if he were an idea whose time has come. Yes, that’s how it feels to speak as someone whose time has come. Victor Hugo, you see, once said that there’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Or something like that. He said that you can resist an invading army but you can’t resist an idea whose time has come. Or something like that. At any rate, you should have got the hang of it. If it’s something or someone whose time has come, they’re destined to win. Like an idea whose time has come, they’ll prevail – no obstacles are big enough to stop them. The idea of democracy, for example, was a Western idea. Around the turn of the 20th century, however, that idea took firm roots in China and as a result, the Qing Dynasty was overthrown. Neither the Qing army nor China’s 2,000 years of feudal traditions could do anything about it. | 
