Idiomatic Expressions: Do You Understand These Expressions?

Here is the first in a series of stories containing idiomatic expressions. Read the meanings of the expressions. Look at the picture. Try to imagine what the story will be.

Listen to the story (Don't read it the first time!). Listen to the story againreading at the same time.

Listen as many times as you like!

Inspection Time

1. Be a bundle of nerves: to be very nervous.

2. At the crack of dawn: very early in the morning.

3. Foot the bill: to pay all the costs for something.

4. Put (something) on the backburner: to give something low priority

5. Hit the nail on the head: to describe exactly what is causing a situation or problem.

Jerry Mandler runs the specimen collection for her local university. She keeps track of thousands of speciments. One month ago, her boss told her he would do an inspection. She felt she had been so busy recording new specimens thatcleaning the specimens had been put on the back burner. Now she feels she has no time to clean and wants an assistant, but no-one will foot the bill. Everyday she gets up at the crack of dawn to come to work to clean. Her boss said she should have been cleaning continuously, and he hit the nail on the head. Now, she's a bundle of nerves, waiting for the inspection.

 

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