IDIOMANIA PODCAST
Beatlemania was a portmanteau, or blend, word coined in the 1960s to describe the state of excitement (mania) felt by a group of hardcore fans about their favourite band (The Beatles). Here at LOS we are so enthusiastic about teaching English idioms that we have created our own blend word, based on the one inspired by The Fab Four, to headline our podcast; Idiomania. Each week or so, we will record an episode which highlights an everyday concept or setting, and then explore some of the common idioms and proverbs (and antonyms) surrounding that scenario. So don’t be frightened to try us out. Or should I say ‘fortune favours the brave’; or ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’; or…I’ll stop now, before my idiomania gets out of control! Or ‘out of hand’; or ‘runs riot’… Help me!
EPISODES
PREVIEW
BUY LESSON
Episode 52: 21st Century Skills
- A cunning plan
- There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’.
- Hot off the press
- Zero in / laser-like focus
Episode 51: Three Little Letters
- Colour
- Time and distance
- ‘Ish’ on its own
- More or less / give or take
Episode 50: Universal Studio
- A universal spanner
- Live in a parallel universe
- Reach for the stars
- Stars in your eyes
Episode 49: Perception is Reality
- Wake up and smell the coffee!
- Get real!
- Be away with the fairies
- Unreal!
Episode 48: Outside The Box
- Blaze a trail
- See something through the prism of something else
- Blue-sky thinking
- The swinging pendulum
Episode 47: Construction Industry
- Go for the jugular
- Dead as a doornail
- Pay lip service to something
- The curate’s egg
Episode 46: Lend Me Your Ears
- In one ear and out the other
- Ears burning
- Be out on your ear
- Play something by ear
Episode 45: Home Sweet Home
- A homie
- On the house
- Not to give house room to someone
- Eat someone out of house and home
Episode 44: Let’s Get Cooking!
- Just for starters
- A porkie / pork pie
- What’s your beef?
- Just desserts
Episode 43: Same Difference
- Be the spitting image of somebody
- Be like two peas in a pod
- Birds of a feather … flock together
- Be cut from the same cloth
Episode 42: Foreign Exchange
- Coup de grâce
- Prima Donna
- Smorgasbord
- Zeitgeist
Episode 41: Six Feet Under
- Pop one’s clogs
- Kick the bucket
- Bite the dust
- Croak
Episode 40: Going For A Song
- It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings.
- Be on song
- Wine, women and song
- Make a song and dance about something
Episode 39: Teach The Teacher
- Don’t teach your grandmother how to suck eggs.
- You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
- Teach to the test
- Teach someone a lesson
Episode 38: Hanging Proverbs
- The best laid plans … of mice and men often go awry.
- Give someone an inch … and they’ll take a mile.
- Once bitten … twice shy.
- People in glass houses … shouldn’t throw stones.
Episode 37: Maxims
- Waste not, want not
- Every dog has its day
- Better safe than sorry
- Nothing ventured, nothing gained
Episode 36: Trust
- My word is my bond.
- There’s no side to him/her.
- Be bent as a nine-bob note
- I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.
Episode 35: Animals Part 2
- It shouldn’t happen to a dog.
- You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
- You’re having a giraffe!
- You look like the cat that got the cream.
Episode 33: The Rule Of Law
- Signed, sealed and delivered.
- The jury’s out.
- The law is an ass.
- A bigwig
Episode 32: The Paranormal
- Twilight Zone
- Let the genie out of the bottle
- Open Pandora’s Box
- A bogeyman
Episode 31: Friends
- Have someone’s back
- Be all ears
- Chin up!
- Written in blood
Episode 30: The New Normal
- Roll with the punches
- Get into the swim of things
- Take to something like a duck to water
- An Achilles heel
Episode 29: Binomials
- Give or take
- Head and shoulders
- Bits and bobs
- To and fro
Episode 28: Fortune-Telling
- A crystal ball
- On the cards
- Have a hunch about something
- How long is a string?
Episode 27: Bizspeak
- Take a rain check on something
- Give someone a heads-up
- A water-cooler conversation
- Gobbledygook
Episode 26: Oxymorons
- Organized chaos
- Same difference
- A working holiday
- Deafening silence
Episode 25: For Better Or Worse?
- As fit as a fiddle
- Throw a sickie
- Be green around the gills
- A taste of one’s own medicine
Episode 24: Have We Got News For You!
- Bad news travels fast.
- No news is good news.
- That’s news to me!
- A bearer of bad news
- A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.
Episode 23: Crime
- Be caught with his/her hands in the till
- A highway robbery
- An open-and-shut case
- Set a thief to catch a thief
Episode 22: Loneliness
- Plough one’s own furrow
- A lone wolf
- Wallow in self-pity
- Snap out of something
- Be comfortable in one’s own skin
- Retreat into one’s shell
Episode 21: Spontaneity
- On the hoof
- Off the cuff
- Think on your feet
- Off the top of your head
Episode 20: Errors & Failure
- Come a cropper
- Take something on the chin
- Go belly up
- Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Episode 19: Leisure Activities
- A hobby horse
- Out of the woods
- Have a foot in both camps
- Lead someone up the garden path
Episode 18: Workaholism
- Keep your head above water
- Put your nose to the grindstone
- Work your fingers to the bone
- Slog your guts out for something
Episode 17: Job Responsibility
- The bottom line
- Up to scratch
- At the coalface
- A jobsworth
Episode 16: Ball Games
- A political football
- Keep your eye on the ball
- Drop the ball
- A whole new ball game
Episode 15: Humour
- Gallows humour
- Schoolboy humour
- Cringe humour
- Toilet humour
Episode 13: Animals Part 1
- A spider’s web of something
- Be blind as a bat
- Cry wolf
- Has the cat got your tongue?
Episode 12: Effective Communication
- Talk over/at/to someone,
- Be on the same wavelength
- Get your wires crossed
- At cross purposes
Episode 11: Christmas
- Turkeys voting for Christmas
- The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
- Good things come in small packages.
- Christmas has come early!
- An early Christmas present
Episode 10: Charisma
- Be all mouth and trousers
- Fur coat and no knickers
- All that glisters is not gold.
- A snake-oil salesman
Episode 9: Disagreement
- Have a bone to pick with someone
- Rock the boat
- Play devil’s advocate
- Nail one’s colours to the mast
Episode 8: End Product
- Need a kick up the arse or an arm around the shoulder
- Put one’s back into it
- Get/pull one’s finger out
- Breathe down someone’s neck
Episode 7: Routine Check
- Nip something in the bud
- Turn over a new leaf
- Get one’s act together
- Pull one’s socks up
Episode 6: Lifelong Learning & CPD
- Be a little rusty
- Behind the times
- Brush up on something
- Learn/know the ropes
Episode 5: Happiness
- Be on cloud nine
- Have a whale of a time
- As sick as a parrot
- Gutted
Episode 4: What’s Your Version?
- She/he wouldn’t say boo to a goose.
- A wallflower
- Be the life and soul of the party
- Not to be backward in coming forward
Episode 2: Talent
- A natural
- First-rate vs. second-rate
- Second to none
- Not to be cut out for something
Episode 1: Procrastination
- Drag one’s heels
- Dilly-dally
- A stitch in time saves nine
- Kick the can down the road
