stick a fork in it

Meaning that something is definitively finished such that whatever it is doing (or being done to it) should or can be stopped, or considered to be done.

From grilling -- not to test whether something is done, b/c that wouldn't make any sense, given what the phrase means. Instead, to stick a fork in the piece of sufficiently-grilled-meat so as to take it off the grill. Connotations of definitive doneness enhanced by sub-conscious notion that the piece of meat is not only completely cooked, it is no longer reasonably conceived of as part of a living animal, and thus can be stabbed with impunity.

Now that Iraq has descended into chaos, you can stick a fork into Bush's re-election chances.

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