20121216

Food Idioms


What do you think these expressions mean?


Bob works hard to bring home the bacon1and put bread and butter2 on his family's table. Every morning, he drags himself to his desk at the bank and faces his tedious 10-hour-a-day job. His boss, Mark, is a bad egg3 but has somehow taken a liking to Bob so he always speaks well of Bob in front of Mr. Davies, the owner and big cheese4 of the company. Mark tells Mr. Davies that Bob's the cream of the crop5 and is one smart cookie6 whouses his noodles7. Mark likes to chew the fat8 with Bob during coffee break and discusses half-baked9 company plans with him because he trusts Bob and knows that Bob won't spill the beans10 behind his back. On these occasions, Bob tries to avoid any hot potatoes11 and, even if Mark isn't his cup of tea12, Bob makes an effort to butter him up13by leading Mark into discussions about electronic gadgets which Mark is nuts about14. Bob really thinks that Mark is out to lunch15 and nutty as a fruitcake16, but in a nutshell17, if he polishes the apple18, his job could become a piece of cake19 and maybe one day he will find his gravy train20.
This is definitely an exaggerated use of idiomatic expressions. But you can see how these expressions make spoken informal language much more colourful and jovial.

Activity II) How good is your food-idiom intuition?

Here are some non-food idiom expressions which you can use to substitute the food idioms in Activity I. Check answers with your teacher.

NON-FOOD EXPRESSIONSFOOD IDIOMS
Aboss4 - big cheese
Bfood
Cvery easy
Don the table but still unofficial
Ethe best
Fcontinues to be servile and brown-nose his boss
Gscoundrel
Hmake a living
Iis an intelligent person
Jshow admiration
Kbasically
Lshare confidential information
Mmeans to a big income with little effort
Nchat
Othinks
Pa little out of touch with reality
Qproblematic issues
Ra little crazy
Sreally likes
Tthe type of person he likes

Answers:

A4E5I6M20Q11
B2F18J13N8R16
C19G3K17O7S14
D9H1L10P15T12

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