Winning English - Mastering Idioms, Slang, and References
Fall into your lap • Herding cats • Poke holes in it • Take it for a ride
Sometimes we have good luck. Even though we didn’t earn it, things go well for us or are made easier in some way. That happened to me recently. A news story filled with idioms just fell into my lap!
Your “lap” is the flat surface created by your legs when you sit in a chair. It’s where you would put a laptop computer. That’s where the name comes from.
Now, imagine one day something good suddenly falls into your lap. You’d likely be very surprised, but also happy! That’s the meaning of “to fall into your lap” - when something good that you didn’t expect comes to you quickly.
The story with lots of idioms came from NPR, a US radio news service. The story was about plans to distribute a covid-19 vaccine. At one point, a health official says that planning to distribute the vaccine has been like “herding a lot of cats”.
“To herd” means to organize a group of animals so that you can move them from one place to another. Humans herd cows, sheep, and so on. But some animals don’t obey humans very well. Cats are one example. So imagine trying to herd cats. It wouldn’t be easy, and it likely wouldn’t go well. So, this official is saying that organizing the vaccine has been very difficult.
Another health researcher in the story said their team was concerned about how well vaccine distribution would go. So, they used a computer to simulate how well their plan would work. “Let’s just poke all kinds of holes in it,” she said. “Take it for a ride. And see how we can improve it.”
Photo by Jan Baborák on Unsplash
“To poke holes in” and “to take it for a ride” are both idioms that mean to test something.
“To poke holes in” means that you are looking for flaws or problems, most often in a plan or an idea. The problems are missing parts, or “holes”, in the idea.
“To take it for a ride” comes from driving a car. “A ride” is time spent in a car. The verb we use for rides is “to take”. We “take rides”. Now, when we are buying a car, we usually want to drive it first. That way we can test if we like it. You can also do this with plans or ideas. You can “take them for a ride” - drive them for a while - to see if you think they are good or bad.
By the way, this saying only means “to test” when talking about things. If we take people “for a ride”, it means we want to cheat them or fool them. It’s confusing, I know. But now you are prepared!
In that news story, I found five more idioms. That’s more than I can write about here. I encourage you to read and listen to the story. Each version had different idioms.
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