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Gone like hot cakes? Reader question: Please explain this sentence: “Tickets for the show have gone like hot cakes and there is now a waiting list.” Why “like hot cakes”? What’s “waiting list”? My comments: Tickets for the show were sold out soon and fast, suggesting that this particular show is popular and very well received. The “waiting list” confirms as much. People are still queuing up for the tickets, you see, when someone comes out of the ticket office to announce that all tickets are gone, sold out. And he or she asks those still in the queue to put their names and contact on a piece of paper – so that when the next batch of tickets become available, they’ll be able to get them right away. The paper, you see, listing all the names of people who care to wait for more tickets to arrive is the waiting list. Safe to assume the waiting list will be long in this case, judging from the fact that the tickets have gone like “hot cakes”. “Hot cakes” is an American idiom, representing a commodity that’s popular and easy to sell. Selling like hot cakes literally means that cakes fresh out of the bakery are sold out while they’re still hot. Cakes, most of them at any rate taste better while they’re still hot from the oven. At home, for example, Mama’s cakes, or bao zi for that matter, are all eaten before she comes out of the kitchen a second time to enquire whether everybody’s tried them and how they taste. | 
