Idiom for random/arbitatry decision making [duplicate]

Solution 1:

"Eenie, meenie, minee, moe" is a childish idiom that denotes a random, arbitrary decision.

In randomly choosing one of two people to be on your baseball team, for example, you point at the first person and say "eenie"; you then point at the second person and say "meenie"; the first person, "minee"; the second person, "moe," and so forth. You do this rhythmically, as follows, with each finger-pointing represented by a slash/virgule:

"Eenie/, meenie/, minee/, moe/. Catch a/ lion/ by the/ toe./ If he/ hollers/, let him/ go./ Eenie/, meenie/, minee/, MOE."

The last person you point to (i.e., "MOE") is "out" and the other person is "in."

In the adult world, if someone were to ask you

"How did you come up with that answer?"

you could say, honestly,

"Well, I did 'eenie, meenie, minee, moe'!"

which means you chose randomly one of two (or more) possible decisions. (With three or more possible decisions, you do "eenie, meenie, minee, moe" several times until only one decision remains, and that one is your choice.)

Other idioms that come to mind include:

"So, did you pull that one out of a hat?"

In other words, each possible decision was put on a slip of paper; all the papers were thrown into a hat; and you pulled only one, blindly, from the hat; that one becomes your decision.

Or,

"What, did you use the magic eight ball for that decision?" (see http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ssanty/cgi-bin/eightball.cgi),

meaning, did you just randomly ask a question of the magic eight ball by flipping it over and doing what it says? (The eight ball has a bunch of random answers floating around inside it, with a flat window at the bottom that reveals an answer once you turn the ball over.)

I used it at the website I cited by asking it "Should I use the magic eight ball as an illustration of how to make a random decision?" Guess what the answer was: "My sources say no." Despite its "decision," I obviously still used it as an illustration.

I asked the same question of the magic eight ball a second time, and this time the answer was "Absolutely!" You just can't count on that magic eight ball!

Solution 2:

Someone who does this shoots in the dark,

or takes potshots at the problem.

The latter use is less common, as it more often is used to indicate a critical or callous remark made toward someone, e.g. criticism without much consideration for whether it is accurate.

More vulgar, people will calls these "wags", which is an acronym for "Wild Ass Guess"

Solution 3:

I don't know if I would go as far as to call it an idiom, but the phrase "throwing darts" comes pretty close to what you want. Most people would at least understand it.

The idea references someone who posts a bunch of options on a wall and selects an option by wherever the dart lands. It's not something I really hear often anymore (as darts aren't as popular a game anymore), but I do hear it occasionally from older people.