SWINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS брит. ; разг. победы и поражения, взлёты и падения; достоинства и недостатки, плюсы и минусы см. тж. you win some you lose some , you can't win them all What you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts / It's swings and roundabouts. — Потеряешь в одном, выиграешь в другом. / Никогда не знаешь, где найдешь, где потеряешь. If you earn more, you pay more tax, so it's all swings and roundabouts. — Чем больше зарабатываешь, тем больше платишь налогов. Ничего не поделаешь. Chalmers used this phrase – and the accompanying sentiment or meaning – in a poem titled ‘Roundabouts and Swings’, which was first published in Chalmers’ volume Green Days and Blue Days in 1912. The original poem is interesting not least because it cleverly employs existing expressions (round and round, up and down) to describe the pattern of financial profit and loss experienced by the travelling man. In doing so, and in using the symbols of the roundabouts and the swings to reinforce this sense of gain and loss, the poem arguably helped to bring the phrase to a wider audience. https://interestingliterature.com/2015/09/the-interesting-origins-of-the-phrase-swings-and-roundabouts/