What does 'heads and tails' mean in spoken grammar?

Heads **or** tails? It depends on the context. It might be about flipping a coin to make a decision. It can also be used figuratively.

"I can't make heads or tails of it" means I can't understand it. "Heads or tails?" Is usually in the context of flipping a coin. It means "Do you choose heads or tails" and if the coin lands on the one you chose, you win.

"Heads and tails" isn't something I would normally use. There's lots of similar expressions though. * "Heads *or* tails" refers to the sides of a coin. The "head" has somebody's head on it. The tail is the other side. "Heads or tails?" as a question asks the listener to pick one, because the speaker is about to flip a coin to make a decision. "Heads I win, tails you lose" can be a common related expression referring to a hypothetical coin flip where the outcome is beneficial only to one party no matter which way it goes. * "Head *to* tail" refers to the length of something, discussing an object from one extremity to the other. For animals with long tails it might literally refer to their length from the top of their nose to the tip of their tail. For a person it generally means from the crown of their head to the tips of their feet. "Heads *and* tails" instinctively makes me think of ways to slaughter a chicken or other animal, meaning that it might include all the parts, but I don't know if this is an actual usage or just some thoughts my mind puts together. I can't remember ever hearing it.

People also say "heads nor tails", as in "I couldn't make heads not tails out of these policy changes." Meaning, it doesn't make any sense to me. Is this related to the 'heads or tails' coin flip? Who knows ...

What’s the context of how it is used in the textbook? “Heads or tails?” Asking if you want to choose heads or tails for a coin flip. “I can’t make heads or tails of this.” I can’t understand this. Kind of like not being able to figure out which end is the head or which end is the tail of something, like a worm.

We say it when flipping a coin to make a choice between two options: “heads or tails?”. This is because (in the UK anyway) one side of the coin has the monarch’s head and the other usually symbols such as lions or a crown etc.

"I can't tell *heads or tails*" means you can't tell the head from the tail. As in you can't tell one side from another, or dont know what it even is.

In context I would take 'heads and tails' to mean opposites, like dark and light. Heads *or* tails is usually used in the context of flipping a coin, or making a random choice based on two possible outcomes. For instance, if I were to say I had the choice of paying a $1000 fine or paying someone $1000 to defend me from paying that fine, I might say it was a heads or tails situation, since the outcome would be the same either way.

I've never heard anyone say "heads and tails." I've heard "heads *or* tails," as in "I can't make heads or tails of it," which is an idiom meaning that you don't understand something.

"I can't make heads nor/or tails of it" means the situation is so confusing you can't tell which end is the head or which is the tail. think of how messed up an animal would have to be if you couldn't tell which end was the head.

INFO: Can you provide the specific context from your textbook? "Heads and tails" by itself isn't really a recognized idiom (at least in my experience of US English), but there are phrases like "Heads *or* Tails" and "Couldn't make heads *nor* tails of it" that might apply.

...you could say that most of us can't make heads or tails of "heads and tails"

It doesn't mean anything in spoken British English. We had coins that had the head of the monarch on one side and a lion on the the other. Throw the coin in the air and it will land with either the 'head' of the monarch or the 'tail' of the animal facing upwards. It's a way of making a random selection between two options. Saying "it's heads or tails" is a way of expressing that something has a 50/50 probability. Saying "I can't make heads nor tails of it" means you can't understand something because you can't distinguish between one explanation and another. Saying that something is "heads and tails" means nothing because the coin can't show heads and tails at the same time.

Yes, these are a feature of spoken English. They are in your grammar book at advanced level because they break a fundamental rule - the Subject + Verb + object / complement rule of sentence order. In theory, all the grammar you have learnt up to advanced level is telling you that you must maintain this order in sentences (except questions). With these structures, you ‘break’ the rule to emphasise a part of the sentence. “That shirt looks cool.” s + v + complement “Looks cool, that shirt! “ (I think this is a tail, but could be wrong - can’t really remember). “He bought a beautiful watch.” “A beautiful watch, he bought.” (Pretty sure this is a head)