IDIOMS 2

Part 1: For each expression below, decide whether the people being described are rich or poor.

• They'll have to tighten their belts.
• He's raking it in at the moment.
• They're very hard up.
• She's finding it hard to make ends meet.
• She's absolutely loaded.
• They're a lot better off than most.
• She's rolling in money.
• He's fallen on hard times.
• They've got money to burn.
• She seems very down at heel.
• We're totally broke.
• They don't have two pennies to rub together.

Part 2: For each of the following expressions, has the share price gone up or down… or could it mean both?

• Since the merger was announced, the share price has gone crazy.
• Following the news, the share price has gone through the roof.
• As a result of the strike, the share price has gone through the floor.
• We believe the share price has hit rock bottom.
• The share price has been going up and down like a yo-yo.
• A lot of investors have lost their nerve.
• News of the takeover bid has caused a lot of investors to get cold feet.
• Investors are queuing up to buy shares.
• Shares in the new company have been changing hands for silly prices.
• Those shares? You can't give them away.
• The collapse of EnTek has had a knock-on effect on our share price.
• After two years of bad news, the share price has finally rallied.

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IDIOMS 1

My wallet has seen better days, it has to be said. It is battered and bruised. It is ragged and torn. It even smells a bit like an old shoe, I have to admit. You may stick your nose up in the air when I take it out of my pocket but all I can say is that it has great sentimental value.You can think what you want.

Anyway, it brings me to my story about the incident at the supermarket. I was queuing up, my head in the clouds, thinking about eating some of the wonderful food I had in my overflowing trolley - my goodness, I was so hungry! Then it happened. The lady at the till told me how much I had to pay and I realized that my wallet had disappeared from my back pocket.

I knew instantly that a pickpocket had taken it and that he or she had done so in the last few seconds. I had felt for the wallet in my pocket less than a minute before. You need to have eyes in the back of your head these days! The queue was growing longer and I felt like I had egg on my face as the cashier looked at me grumpily. But I had something up my sleeve.

I immediately dropped to my knees and started sniffing the other frowning customers as if I were a dog. Taking it rather hard, you might have thought. But there was method in my madness: standing two people behind me in the queue was a rather nervous looking boy who had something in his pocket that smelt like an old shoe. A few moments before, he had bumped into me as he reached for chewing gum on the rack near the conveyor belt.

The security guard, who had just come over to tell me to stop making a scene, suddenly realized he had bigger fish to fry: he was about to catch a thief, red-handed. I cooked an enormous meal when I got home by way of celebration - too big in fact. Cooking while hungry is hazardous. Too often, your eyes are too big for your stomach and you miscalculate. But I hadn't been the only person to miscalculate that day.

So there you have them: the ten idioms we (rather hurriedly) looked at in class today! Does the way each one is used allow you to understand it from its context?