Expressions you can half-guess: the body, the weather and money
Money is tight this year, so we are spending less - Money is tight this year, so we are tightening our belts
How to use this sheet
Every expression in the table below is built from ordinary words: parts of the body, the weather, and the everyday talk of earning and paying. That is exactly what makes them risky. The literal words point roughly at the meaning, so a reader guesses right about half the time and then stops looking. What they never reveal is the wording, which is frozen, or the situation, which is far narrower than the guess. Some of these belong in a written report; others would sound strange anywhere except among friends. The third column exists for that reason.
| Expression | Meaning | When it fits |
|---|---|---|
| keep an eye on something | watch it and notice if it changes | Neutral, and acceptable in a work email. The body part stays singular even when several things are being watched. |
| give someone a hand | help someone with a practical task | Spoken and warm, but polite enough for colleagues. Singular, and the task follows with the preposition with. |
| see eye to eye with someone | agree fully about something | Almost always negative or in a question. Both nouns stay singular however many people are disagreeing. |
| get cold feet | lose your nerve just before doing what you agreed to do | Used about a commitment already made: a wedding, a contract, a resignation. No possessive before the adjective. |
| under a cloud | under suspicion, with your reputation damaged | Formal and serious. It describes how other people regard you, not how you feel, and it takes the indefinite article. |
| take a rain check on something | refuse an invitation now while accepting the idea for later | Informal and social, a way of softening a refusal. Keep the article, and follow it with the preposition on. |
| a storm in a teacup | a great deal of anger about something unimportant | Mildly disapproving, and British: the American version changes the weather word and the container alike. It is a noun phrase and needs a verb in front of it. |
| save something for a rainy day | keep money aside for a future difficulty | Neutral, and common in advice about savings. The object sits between the verb and the rest of the phrase. |
| make ends meet | earn just enough to cover what you have to pay | Neutral, usually about hardship. The plural noun takes no article and no possessive. |
| tighten your belt | spend less than before because there is less money | Neutral, frequent in news about companies and governments. The possessive and the noun both follow the subject. |
| cost an arm and a leg | be far more expensive than it should be | Informal and deliberately exaggerated, so it is out of place in a formal report. Both articles are singular and neither can be dropped. |
| foot the bill | pay for something, often on behalf of other people | Neutral, but it hints that the payer had little choice. The verb is fixed and the noun keeps its article. |
In use
Since the enquiry opened, the deputy head has been under a cloud, and nobody will say how long it will last. We would love to come, but could we take a rain check and make it the following weekend instead? Both grants ended in June, so the department is tightening its belt and asking staff to foot the bill for conferences.
Watch out
We do not see eyes to eye with the new supplier about the delivery dates.
The sentence above shows the mistake nearly everyone makes with the third row. Two people are involved, and each of them has two of the body part concerned, so the plural looks like ordinary agreement. English treats the whole row as a single frozen unit, and both nouns stay singular however many people are disagreeing. What makes the error so tempting is the tenth row, where the possessive and the noun really do follow the subject and really do become plural when the subject is plural. The two rows behave in opposite ways, and nothing predicts which is which, so the wording has to be learned as it stands. Note also that the third row is nearly always used in the negative or in a question.