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Reader question: Please explain this sentence: “It’s still a far cry from ideal, but a significant step in the right direction.” Far cry? My comments: It’s a significant step in the right direction, but still far from ideal. In other words, we can save everybody a “cry” or two. When we say something is a long distance away from being perfect, we say it’s far from perfect, or ideal. Ideal, you see, is someone’s idea of a perfect situation. An ideal is essentially an idea, something in the mind. It’s what you think. It’s not reality. It’s not something that exists in real world. In other words, it’s not real. See the difference between the real world and the ideal world? Yes, that’s it. The ideal world doesn’t exist. Anyways, in our discussion, when the speaker says something is a far cry from ideal, he/she means to say the situation is still much different from what he/she has in the mind, how things will be able to work out perfectly and seamlessly – all smooth and easy, trouble free. Still, the speaker acknowledges that a significant step is taken in the right direction, i.e. big improvements have been made, so therefore, not too much to complain about either. The question we are concerned with is “far cry”. Why “far cry”, when “far” seems to work just as well? Well, far cry is literally a cry from afar, a shout from a distance away. In the past, long before the telephone lines and mobile services were ever imagined to be even possible, people used their voices whenever possible. Whenever, that is, when they were within what is called shouting or crying distance. | 
