Fractured Idioms Today Thursday 4/26/12 Poem by Lonnie Hicks

Scatter to the four winds
What relatives do when the subject of religion and politics comes up at thanksgiving dinner.


Take a leaf out of someone's book
This happens in the stacks at libraries.



Take a nosedive
Diving into one's own nose is considered extremely difficult to do

Take a raincheck
Looking out the window to check for precipitation

Take aback
This usually occurs right after one has taken affront.

Take by the scruff of the neck
This maneuver cannot be done to football players and wrestlers because they have no necks.

Take for a test drive
When the first date includes a long drive in the country

Take forty winks
The precise number of winks which, if exceeded, makes one into an excessive flirt.



Take it on the chin
When combined with Chiny-Chin refers to the last of the Three Little Pigs

Take sand to the beach
When bullies have to provide their own sand for kicking into the face of skinny guys.

Take someone down a peg
Refers to humiliating one's opponents in a rough game of mumbly-peg

Take someone for a ride
Invitation from a mobster

Take someone to the cleaners
When a simple shower won't do

Take someone to the woodshed
Accompanying someone to the outhouse at night who is afraid of the dark

Take someone under your wing
Chicken wings at KFC are so large that it is possible to….

Take stock
Cattle theft

Take the cake
Refers to young boys who grab handfuls of cake at weddings



Take the throne
Means either to become the head of a country or it means going to the bathroom



Take the edge off
Futile attempt to avoid going over a cliff

Take the fall
See above

Take the fifth
A popular bar in Chicago for alcoholics only

Take the flak
What people who take the fifth have to take when they get home

Take the rough with the smooth
A half worn razor blade

Take up the torch
Berserk townspeople heading up to Frankenstein's castle


Take your breath away
What your date says after you have had the garlic pizza

Uncle Sam
When a crazy uncle is a country

Under a cloud
Where Microsoft is trying to put us all

Under false colours
When you can have almost any color be considered blonde.


Under someone's heel
Making love with a married man


Under the gun
When a really tall robber tries to rob a really short man

Under the table
What happens when you have the zombie drink at the wedding thinking it was punch

Under the wire
Bras with wires

Under your nose
Would be your mouth and to think some people don't know this

Under your thumb
Crushing ants at the family picnic (and who can claim they have not done this?)

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown
From "Guillotine Stories from French History" by Marie Antoinette

Unwavering loyalty
Promise made on first dates

Up a river without a paddle
Refers to trying to navigate a river without a means of locomotion

Up for grabs
A situation some women encounter in parked cars late at night



Up in the air
The position of some males heads when they try the above maneuver


Up to scratch
The seventh inning stretch at baseball games



Up to the neck
Where a vampire's eyes continuously stray

Vent your spleen
Refers to the false belief that spleens need venting

Vicious circle
Refers to groups of junior high friends

Wag the dog
A game deeply resented by dogs

Wake up and smell the coffee
The false belief that coffee can raise the dead.


Walk a mile in my shoes
Describing to the police how far you followed a shoe thief

Walk the plank
When pirates tell blindfolded passengers that the Caribbean is a "big swimming pool"

Waste of skin
What cannibal mothers tell their kids never to do


Watch your back
Only people with really flexible necks can do this

Watching paint dry
The most fun one can have in a really small town