... se acomodan con el camión andando

[aleCcowaN]

I am looking for a literal translation of the following saying:

Los melones (o zapallos/calabazas, o sandías) se acomodan con el camión andando.

It means that you cannot anticipate everything while you're planning, or you cannot foresee every angle in some business, so many things will be solved as it goes along.

I wonder how to depict the same image in English: no matter how carefully you place a load of pumpkins in a truck, they will reach a stable position once quite a stretch has been covered, because "los zapallos se acomodan con el camión andando".

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

Los melones (o zapallos/calabazas, o sandías) se acomodan con el camión andando.

The best I can come up with is

The melons will sort themselves out whilst the lorry/truck is underway.

"to sort themselves out" means they will eventually move from an unstable state to a stable one. This might however be a British idiom.

[poli]

There are several options each with a slightly different meaning: To play it by ear.
To let the chips fall as they may.
To see how things pan out.
To wait to see how things will fall into place (I believe this is the closest one)

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by Perikles

The best I can come up with is

The melons will sort themselves out whilst the lorry/truck is underway.

"to sort themselves out" means they will eventually move from an unstable state to a stable one. This might however be a British idiom.

Thanks for that. Macmillan dictionary has three British meanings for "sort out", but the closest meaning of "organize things: to get rid of things that you do not need and arrange things that you do need tidily" is not identified as British or American.

Originally Posted by poli

There are several options each with a slightly different meaning: To play it by ear.
To let the chips fall as they may.
To see how things pan out.
To wait to see how things will fall into place (I believe this is the closest one)

Thanks. Useful phrases for slightly different circumstances. I wasn't looking for an English equivalent anyway, I don't think it exists, as with many witty folk sayings that can't be translated from any of our languages to the other. That's why ideas keep coming to my mind in the wrong language. Some days ago I find myself speaking strange Spanish and it happens that for the first time in my life I was thinking in English and translating into Spanish as I talked. Pretty worrying.

This expression of "...se acomodan..." doesn't relate to "let's wait and see". It's more spiritually linked to other sayings like "la función hace al órgano", sort of "if you don't use it, you lose it", but, among other good examples, the saying to use when someone ask some people why they run during 30 minutes three times a week only to achieve them to be sweaty, tired and panting.

[poli]

The form will fit the function perhaps.