The Rat Race: At Work With Idioms Quiz

Answer: pounding the pavement

Hitting the road, walking the beat and pounding the pavement all are straightforward terms most probably grown into colloquial usage from the simple reality of the force of a foot hitting the hard road surface. Pounding the pavement has taken on the meaning of looking for work, walking a beat is seemingly mostly applied to the activity of a policeman on his rounds, and hitting the road is a more general term for getting going on your travels.

"All I've ever done is work. I arrived in LA in my twenties and I've been pounding the pavement ever since." - Jeremy Piven, actor

Answer: get your foot in the door

You complete the first step in a process when you "get your foot in the door." In other words, you've gotten noticed and you have a chance to be heard. The idiom alludes to salesmen hawking their wares door to door, who learned to be aggressive in pursuing a sale. Once the occupant opened the door, the recommended technique was to literally position your foot such that the door could not be closed before you could start your sales pitch. You're in the game when you decide to compete, but you've no chance at the inner circle until you first get your foot in the door.

Answer: on tenterhooks

Tenters were the wooden frames with hooks on them on which woolen cloth was stretched to dry. So, being stretched out and waiting on these hooks gave rise to that expression of uncomfortable anticipation - being on tenterhooks. Another similar, even more common, idiom is "on pins and needles." This has a simpler origin, from the prickly feeling in a limb which is returning to normal after being numb or "asleep." Either way, you "can't wait" for this feeling to go away, but you must.

Answer: like a one armed paper hanger

The three incorrect answers very much describe a happy or even euphoric state of mind when you get some great news or something goes just the way you want it to go. If you've ever hung wallpaper, you know it can be an intense job getting the wet pasted paper quickly and smoothly onto the wall with no wrinkles. To do it with one arm is a busy, pressurized endeavor, not at all how you feel when you get the affirmative call about your new job.

Answer: busy beaver

Someone who's "busy as a beaver" is hard-working and industrious, generally admirable traits which hopefully will be noticed, appreciated and rewarded on the job. The idiom dates to the 1700s from observations of beavers gnawing down trees and toiling long hours to dam the streams they live around.

The equivalent expression "busy as a bee" is even older. Crossing the line is the worker who only appears busy, and engages in insincere flattery of higher ups in order to curry favor. Of the three derogatory terms for this phenomenon, "brown noser" invokes the most unsavory metaphorical image.

Answer: to the grindstone

Put your NOSE to the grindstone and your SHOULDER to the wheel. And, although it's probably wise to thoroughly understand the boss's business, keeping busy and out of his personal affairs is the best idea here. The correct idiom may have arisen from the practice of knife sharpeners getting close to the grindstone to inspect their work. Considering how painful actually placing one's proboscis on a grindstone would be, there is some evidence the practice was used as a punishment, but either way, the admonition to keep focused on the work at hand without getting distracted is clear.

The etymology is ancient. This quote is from John Frith's "A Mirror to Know Thyself", from 1532: "This Text holdeth their noses so hard to the grindstone, that it clean disfigureth their faces."

Answer: chew the fat

To chew the fat means to discuss or have a casual conversation. To bite the bullet is to accept a painful situation stoically and bravely. To gild the lily is to add unnecessary finishing touches to something which is already complete. Tripping the light fantastic is dancing, usually of a social nature.

Answer: the cat

For revealing a secret, ruining a surprise, or exposing a fact better kept hidden, the colloquialism "letting the cat out of the bag" is commonly used. The derivation of the phrase is not clear. Evidence does not support the British Navy slang theory - that it refers to the cat o' nine tails, purportedly stored in a sack, used to mete out punishment aboard ships.

Answer: the elephant in the room

If something is obvious, yet for some reason is uncomfortable, taboo, or otherwise unmentionable, it is often described as "the elephant in the room." The phrase probably had its origin in a fable, "The Inquisitive Man", written by Russian poet Ivan Krylov in 1814.

He relates the story of a man who visits a museum, notices all manner of small details, but never sees the elephant on display. Dostoevsky references that work in his novel "Demons" (1871), comparing one of his characters to Krylov's Inquisitive Man.

The phrase has really come to mean something so big it can no longer be ignored.

Answer: back to the salt mines

Although it's impossible to say exactly when this idiom came into vogue, it's certain that in ancient times the Romans assigned slaves to mine salt, and that it was a hard, dangerous job with nothing but drudgery and a short life awaiting those so employed. So, describing a boring, repetitive job in this manner follows logically and is not new.

In a salt-related vein, the word "salary" originally comes from the Latin word "salarius" meaning that it is related to salt. In ancient Rome, the salary was the monies paid to soldiers for salt purchase. An appointment with the grim reaper means it's your dying day, as does a trip to Davy Jones' locker, which is a euphemism for the bottom of the sea, so your job is probably not that bad.