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Reader question: Please explain this headline: Dean’s departure leaves large shoes to fill. My comments: To paraphrase: The dean’s left his post and it’s hard to replace him. In other words, the dean’s done such a good job that it’ll be difficult for his successor to emulate his success. “Large” in “large shoes” doesn’t mean that the dean has a large pair of feet. He may or may not have big feet but it’s not supposed to take the adjective literally here. “Large” instead points to the dean’s accomplishments – they were outstanding. To have a pair of shoes to fill, you see, is a variation from the more commonplace phrase to fill someone’s shoes, that is, to do what they do. People are different in stature; their shoes are in consequence different in size. It is therefore often uncomfortable for one to wear another person’s shoes, let alone walk a mile in them, as they say. Hence, by extension, whenever a person is required to do the job of another person, they’re described as being asked to fill that somebody’s shoes. If the shoes are large, that means the person in question is an outstanding personality, someone who’s achieved a lot, someone who’s difficult to replace – because it’s hard to imagine anyone else doing the job as well as he’s been doing. For example, when Jerry Buss, the owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, died Monday at age 80, he apparently left a pair of outsized shoes for his sons and daughters to fill. Jerry won 10 titles for LA and it’s hard, if not downright impossible, to imagine that his second son Jimmy, who control’s the Lakers basketball operations and Jeanie, Jerry’s oldest daughter in charge of the Lakers business operations, can emulate that success. | 
