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Steady as she goes
English Phrase: Steady-as-she-goes The phrase steady as she goes originally comes from sailing ships. Sailing ships change direction often – it’s called tacking – to catch the changing winds. There’s no need to change from time to time because the wind is not changing direction; in these cases, the captain would order steady as she…
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Staycation
WotD: Staycation When I was young and foolish, I travelled extensively. Actually, I was a backpacker for ten years. As I got older and wiser (my wife disagrees with the wiser part), I lost the travel bug, and now I prefer staycations. A staycation is a vacation that you take close to home. It’s a…
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Tongue in cheek
Phrase: Tongue in cheek As we can see in the picture, it is a beautiful day for snorkelling. Well, it was a terrible day for snorkelling, but I spoke tongue in cheek. Sometimes, speaking this way may seem a little like sarcasm, but the difference is that sarcasm is intended to hurt someone. When someone…
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Godsend
Word of the Day: Godsend A godsend is anything that is needed very much and happens unexpectedly. Most office workers in Japan have experienced working overtime and having a late supper. The problem is that when you are working at 8:00 pm, you lose your energy because you are hungry. If your coworker suddenly shows…
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Pinch your pennies
Phrase: Pinch your pennies If you pinch your pennies, you try to spend as little money as possible. This does not necessarily have to mean that you are cheap. If we put a positive twist on it, pinching your pennies can suggest that you carefully consider each purchase before you spend your money. These days, I…
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Eavesdrop
Word of the Day: Eavesdrop When you secretly listen in on a private conversation, you are eavesdropping. To eavesdrop, you secretly listen to a conversation that doesn’t involve you. It’s often impolite to eavesdrop, but it’s also very exciting. Before we go any further, let me say that an eave is the edge of a…
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Catch red-handed
English Idiom: Catch red-handed For some reason, I have a vague memory of a children’s program from about 35 years ago, which was using a skit to teach the idiom red-handed to young viewers like I was at the time. A little boy continually sneaked his hand into the cookie jar to steal cookies even…
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Doodad
Word of the Day: Doodad Doodad is a super helpful word; believe me, as you grow older, it will become more and more valuable. You can use this word for anything that you have forgotten the name for or that you don’t know the name for. If you look at the picture, you can see…
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Wear many hats
Idiom: Wear many hats I’m sure that many of you reading this post today wear many hats. You may be a mother or father or a nurse or researcher. Perhaps you are a wife, husband, son, daughter, granddaughter or grandfather. No matter who you are, you most likely play multiple roles in your life, which is…
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Handcuff
Word of the Day: Handcuff You may already know that when the police arrest you, they handcuff you so that you cannot fight back and either hurt them or yourself. That is a pretty straightforward usage of the word. However, there is another way to use the word handcuff. We can handcuff people with rules…
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