Gooogr/pie_idioms huggingface dataset:
Idiom: in the driving seat (used idiomatically: yes)
The proposals were believed to be ‘ an attempt to cash limit a demand led service which will damage the doctor / patient relationship and be detrimental to patient care.’ In Scotland , however , the approach was different . A paper which I and colleagues in Grampian prepared for Scottish General Medical Services Committee posed the questions does this present an opportunity for general practice to have greater influence in the provision of health care for our patients ? does it put general practice in the driving seat in helping to determine the range and quality of health service provision ? or might it constitute an intolerable administrative burden on the constrained resources of an increasingly cash limited primary care service ? In a characteristically pragmatic way , the BMA in Scotland persuaded the government to allow the proposals to be tested . A shadow fundholding exercise was agreed that would be independently evaluated to assess the effects on the care of patients and look at the administration structures , consulting patterns , and use of doctors ' time .
Idiom: have a heart (used idiomatically: no)
We took pains to get to the front of the queue for the evening meal so that we would be in time for the start of the picture . When the doors of the huge dining room at the zoo were thrown open we were first in , but a sergeant cook met us in the entrance with : " I want three volunteers for dishwashing — you , you and you , " and marched us away . He probably had a kind heart because he patted our shoulders as we climbed miserably into greasy dungarees . " Never mind , lads , " he said . " I 'll see you get a real good meal afterwards . "
Idiom: close call (used idiomatically: yes)
And , I suppose , if I 've been dethroned I must at some stage have been enthroned ! That must have been a ‘ high’ . It 's a close call , but days like these when there are ‘ highs’ make it all worthwhile . I never expected it to be easy , but I do sometimes wish for those moments that I experienced in the distant past , when the umpire used to say , ‘ game , set and match’ , and you shook hands before entering the comparative safety of the changing room . COMPETITION
Idiom: man's best friend (used idiomatically: yes)
Outside of a dog , a book is man 's best friend . Inside of a dog , it 's too dark to read .
Idiom: under the influence (used idiomatically: no)
Also the frenzy that follows all great cravings , all strong affects ; the frenzy of feasts , contests , feats of daring , victory , all extreme movement ; the frenzy of cruelty ; the frenzy in destruction , the frenzy under certain meteorological influences , as for example the frenzy of spring ; or under the influence of narcotics ; and finally the frenzy of will , the frenzy of an overcharged and swollen will .
Idiom: ring a bell (used idiomatically: yes)
She did n't know if she wanted to look different or the same . Her best coat would perhaps have been better because it would make her look as though she had n't let herself go , but on the other hand her frightful old lumber jacket would have suggested , what was true enough , that she was worried enough not to care . But among all these doubts it had not occurred to her that if she got as far as 42b Milvain Street , and rang the bell , Edward would not open the door . It was the b , perhaps , that was the trouble . b suggested an upstairs flat , and there was only one bell at 42 .
Idiom: on the level (used idiomatically: yes)
Despite the recent successes of house churches and charismatic movements , the overall picture is unchanged . In the United States , however , it is precisely because churches are so full , and wealthy , that it is not easy to see that in fact secularisation in the form of ' laicisation ' has gripped the church by the throat . The philosophical Enlightenment , as we have seen , promoted rationality on a philosophical level . The immediate effects of that philosophical rationalism were felt only by the intelligentsia . But with the coming of modernity proper , that is with industrialisation , what made the philosophies so potent was that they became embodied as a functional rationality .
Idiom: thin as a rake (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ Welcome aboard Cap'n,’ grinned Billy as Yanto reached the top of the gangway . Billy had been a close friend for over a year now and they had had some good times together . Tuberculosis as a child had kept Billy out of the war , but he was now a fit twenty - six year old , as tall as Yanto , but as thin as a rake . His mop of red hair and boyish good looks made him a favourite with the ladies . ‘ I do n't like the look of yours much , Yant,’ was his favourite expression as the two of them prepared to chat up a couple of strange girls .
Idiom: land of nod (used idiomatically: yes)
I said if I 'm awake when you get up then yes , but do n't wake me up I would n't get , I would n't mind if it was bloody six o'clock but it was n't it was more like half past . It was n't it was more like twenty past and I was deep in the land of nod You 'd been asleep , you was not in the land of nod at all . I was last week
Idiom: at a loss for words (used idiomatically: yes)
when do you when they are . You 're at a loss totally . One is at a total loss for words to express adequately how one really feels inside , you know . It is erm , Well
Idiom: make someone's day (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ I am not bitter … we are just going to get on with our lives.’ The prince said : ‘ I was very impressed by the attitude of all the patients — particularly Mrs Vickers . ‘ It has made my day meeting her . She had this wonderful , positive attitude — she is determined to get herself back again.’ Meanwhile , Colin and Wendy Parry , of Great Sankey , Warrington , saw hopes for their son Tim snatched away with the news that his condition has deteriorated in the intensive care unit of Liverpool 's Walton neurosurgical centre .
Idiom: on the ball (used idiomatically: yes)
They will have to ask permission from the match umpires before they can use their fingers to scratch mud from the surface of the ball . The game 's official lawmakers are preparing the new legislation , to be presented to the ICC , following last summer 's controversy surrounding Pakistan 's Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis . The law , which covers all levels of cricket , will also specifically ban bowlers from lifting the seam on a ball . It is hoped the law will be in place in time for next summer 's Ashes series . Explaining the proposals , MCC secretary Col John Stephenson said : ' We have had to cater for all cricket , so it may not seem to be as tough as some people have been demanding .
Idiom: under the influence (used idiomatically: yes)
More importantly for this essay , Poovey shows how the debate happened around the prone body of the silenced , anaesthetized woman : and how the body itself , now the repository , in a way , of Desire itself , came to behave accordingly . Poovey cites numerous articles describing the sexual and hysterical behaviour of women under the influence of anaesthetic . An article by W. Tyler Smith in The Lancet in 1847 described a woman under the influence of chloroform trying to kiss an attendant . It becomes an argument about propriety : Smith says ‘ May it not be that in woman the physical pain neutralizes the sexual emotions which would otherwise … tend very much to alter our estimation of the modesty and retiredness proper to the sex , and which are never more prominent or more admirable than on these occasions?’ Note that it is a problem for the doctor first and foremost .
Idiom: take stock (used idiomatically: yes)
The School continues to attract large numbers of postgraduate research students with the Institute of Aquaculture and the Department of Biological and Molecular Sciences being particularly successful in this respect . As important as our research students to the well being of research , is the large number of research assistants and post - doctoral research fellows in the School . The preparation of submissions for the UFC Research Assessment Exercise provided a timely opportunity to take stock of our research activities in more depth than usual . The data gathered for the exercise clearly reflect the now very considerable research strength and performance that we possess . Despite increased teaching loads over the past three years , the School , as a whole , has very substantially increased its research funding and its research output , over the 3–4 year period of assessment .
Idiom: ten a penny (used idiomatically: yes)
Again we have n't had time to check fully , but there is a soprano of that name.’ Aranyos paused momentarily , apparently lost in thought . Recovering himself , he continued , ‘ Müllers are ten - a - penny in Germany , of course . ‘ Yes . Funny .
Idiom: pull strings (used idiomatically: no)
The income er , the laboratory you can see last year ma made a surfeit of seventy five thousand pounds , the budgetary purchases we always assume the laboratory will simply cover its expenditure , in reality we hope they will be slightly better than that and they generally do . Chairman I 'm sure that the Policy Committee will take note of er your erm remarks er and indeed will be pleased to see the satisfactory er , operation of the Highways Department er in the current year , erm , sometimes we get some better news than others and of course the , the fact that the interest rates have er fallen has considerably er , erm assisted the Highways Department as indeed have the er very competitive prices which have been received for er , er constructional works . I really would like to comment further , but I 'm not able so to do er we have all heard the autumn statement er from the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week , following on from that we expect to receive the draft standard spending assessment for Suffolk on or about the twenty sixth of this month , er and it really is , will be er when we have that indication that er Policy Committee will give to er , pull together the strings for the preparation of next year 's budget . Thank you . And of course you wo n't proceed in the
Idiom: out of the question (used idiomatically: yes)
For your professional purposes , and mine as a politician , we have to keep them as far apart as we can — providing of course that my analysis is sound . Exploiting further this notion of that which is endemic becoming epidemic , there is the phenomenon of the increased use of firearms . This seems to me to illustrate what I would call the ‘ Breakthrough Phenomenon’ : the sudden discovery that something which has been assumed to be out of the question is not out of the question at all . Unless my recollection is at fault , it seems to be that two generations ago it was accepted in our society that we did not use firearms . There was no more objective reason why firearms should not have been used in burglaries and bank hold - ups thirty or sixty years ago than today ; but it ‘ was n't done’— until it was discovered that it was done , that you could do it .
Idiom: fight tooth and nail (used idiomatically: yes)
They are , nevertheless , still subject to any byelaws in their area due to the wording of s.108 which refers to , ‘ the business of fish frying , carried on , or in any premises or street’ . Whilst byelaws therefore go some way to control fish trying odours from existing fish and chip shops , the primary most effective control still lies with planners to ensure that new premises , or those where a change of use to a fish and chip shop is contemplated , are sited where they will cause the least irritation to local residents , perhaps siting them together with other shops . It is recognised in planning circles that planning applications for fish and chip shops are contentious and it has been said that whilst ‘ Joe Public wants hot food shops he does not want them near him and he is prepared to fight tooth and nail to stop anyone opening one near his house’ . INDIRECT LEGAL CONTROLS It is often possible for offensive odours to be controlled indirectly through various statutes , other than the Public Health legislation .
Idiom: get a life (used idiomatically: yes)
bit I went I mean I was feeling a lit , was n't , I 'm gon na barf ! Oh I 'm going urgh ! I just thought get a life ! You know how Give me that !
Idiom: add insult to injury (used idiomatically: yes)
But Leopold soon found another source of grievance — the fact that Wolfgang had lied to him over the money he had earned . Having failed to complete the flute music for De Jean , he had only received half the commission fee , a fact he tried to disguise by claiming that life in Mannheim was very expensive . To add insult to injury , he had even turned down paying pupils in order to give free lessons to Aloysia ; and with supreme lack of tact he even described how he had begun an aria for the tenor Raaff , only to turn it into one for Aloysia instead . However , he reluctantly agreed to continue his journey to Paris . On 14 March , 1778 Wolfgang and his mother finally left Mannheim , miserable and virtually penniless .
Idiom: go places (used idiomatically: yes)
‘ It 's time for the mediocrity that has governed and dominated Nineties pop music to give way to a band that can deliver what it promises,’ declares Damien , the gold lamé - shirted singer and lead guitarist . Well , we 've hard that one before , but what exactly are this year - old Bristol combo going to deliver ? ‘ Music that 's right for the time,’ butts in drummer John ( yes , the drummer — you can tell a band is going places when even the stick - head looks good and demands to have his say ) . ‘ Good dance music , not those wet club records you get nowadays . Music with substance .
Idiom: to say the least (used idiomatically: yes)
Um now the process of remembering abuse again is another area of contemporary debate . Erm often accusing people of abusing you when you were a child is quite , in some ways , quite a risky thing to do because they , understandably perhaps , get rather huffy about it . Er they get rather sulky and offended to say the least , they get er , often they recruit academics and lawyers to say that the memories of abuse are fabricated , the memories of abuse they could n't really have happened because the people concerned were out of the country at the time and were on holiday anyway and er did n't even meet the family until the kid was eleven years old after it was sup and so on and so forth . There 's an in er a strong tendency to call the the testimony of people who 've been abused into question in this way . Um in particular there 's this constructive false memory syndrome that erm people are in some ways quite keen on .
Idiom: come to a head (used idiomatically: no)
I probably will take up the offer . ‘ There is a link between training for the fight game and for goalkeeping . I 've never shirked anything when it comes to a tangle of heads and bodies in the box and when I punch the ball it stays punched . ‘ But I 'll tell you this , I 'd rather go 12 rounds with Lennox Lewis than face a 25-yarder from our full-back Clive Freeman ! ‘ Everybody marvelled at Clive 's goal in the replay against Chester but he 's scored 11 goals this season and 10 of them have been screamers like that . ’
Idiom: under the influence (used idiomatically: yes)
So the membrane thins down , the solvent collects rounds the around the outside and er you 're left with a pure bilayer of phospholipid . You can then take vesicles which you would have prepared erm biochemically , either through first purifying your protein or , more crudely , a er a s a partially purified membrane fraction , and fuse those with the artificial bilayer . And vesicles will fuse under the influence of an osmotic gradient . So you apply an osmo you in introduce the vesicles into into one chamber , apply an osmotic gradient , and those vesicles then fuse with the artificial bilayer , and again if you 're lucky you see a single channel erm appear in the bilayer and you can then stop the fusion process to stop more er channels appearing . Okay .
Idiom: song and dance (used idiomatically: no)
Politics aside , Crawford 's black - and - blue comedy had made him a star with New York theatre - goers , and the American film industry was about to capitalize on this young star who would do anything . Chapter 8 HELLO , DOLLY ! During the 1967 San Francisco Film Festival , Crawford met Gene Kelly , the song - and - dance maestro who had himself been a hit on the Broadway stage before starring in film musicals such as Singing In the Rain . Now Kelly was planning to direct a film version of Hello , Dolly ! , whose associate producer , Roger Edens , had seen Crawford in Black Comedy and in the film The Jokers . Edens phoned producer Ernest Lehman and said , ' I 've found the boy to play Cornelius . '
Idiom: over the moon (used idiomatically: yes)
Oh well you 're probably right . I said what is it ? It 's a little lad and I I looked through a window , I could see Judith holding this baby but you had to walk round to get to her and I knew before you 'd got there and you were all over the moon about this little baby and everything Ah ! and i it was all , you know
Idiom: for the time being (used idiomatically: yes)
Lord Knollys , chairman of BOAC , was not particularly pleased with these proposals , nor were other members of the Cabinet . Sir Archibald Sinclair , the Secretary of State for Air , thought there should be only one company , and Lord Beaverbrook stated that free enterprise should have the widest possible scope in the operation of the companies . As a sign of the future , Ernest Bevin , Minister of Labour , and one of the senior Labour Party ministers , said his party had rather different views on the matter , but would accept the general proposals for the time being . Despite the opposition of the Air Staff , which labelled the post of Minister of Civil Aviation separate from the Air Ministry ‘ disastrous’ , the War Cabinet decided in January 1945 to place BOAC and civil aviation under their own ministry , to be headed by the incumbent Minister of Civil Aviation . This was accomplished quickly and the appropriate legislation was passed by Parliament in April .
Idiom: bear fruit (used idiomatically: yes)
Since the 1950s the main achievements in Bach research have been based on a new examination of music sources . In the case of the vocal works — many of which can be dated virtually to the day of composition — this has led to a fundamental change in our perception of Bach 's activities and outlook . Similar work on the sources of the instrumental , particularly keyboard , works has begun only in the last decade or so , and is now bearing fruit in a far clearer understanding of Bach 's thoughts and intentions . This work has shed much new light not only on chronology , and therefore on the development of Bach 's style , but also on performance practice and what is loosely termed reception history . This is currently the main thrust of new thinking about Bach .
Idiom: under the table (used idiomatically: yes)
He saw rubber fetishism as one of the few remaining genuine underground cultures . Simple as that And he always wanted to be in on any underground culture going . He was like a kid making his camp under the dining room table with some blankets and pillows . Everybody would be sitting there round the table having their Sunday dinner while down below them the kid would think he had the only important world to himself . I always thought Malcolm was a bit like that kid .
Idiom: catch fire (used idiomatically: yes)
Rather apprehensively I let the other girls use it , on the strict understanding that when they had finished with it they unplugged it and stowed it away somewhere out of sight of our two gauleiters , hopefully after it had cooled down a bit . But of course I was always coming off - duty to find the thing burning away merrily in an empty hut . My guardian angel must have been working overtime as the hut never actually caught fire , and as far as I am aware neither of our overseers suspected that we were harbouring such a forbidden utensil in the Met Waafs ' hut . For me it was certainly a healthy life , living up on the wolds after two years in the marshy lowlands of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdon . Pedalling up to the office in the mornings , with the bike wheels crunching on the thick white frost , I would arrive with bright red cheeks and breath coming out like steam , and once the Met Officer commented , after I had given him a cheerful , early morning smile , ‘ You do n't know what a difference it makes to your face when you smile !
Idiom: slap on the wrist (used idiomatically: yes)
Few prior to Jones had cared to admit this seditious point except in the columns of the Police Review , where disgruntled beat officers ( often anonymously ) indicate the paradox of being the revered and reviled base on which all the hierarchy is built . Jones 's book remained untouched on the shelves of Northumbria 's modest library in its first two years , even though it had good reviews ; and the influence of his research has been all but negligible . For even though some attempt to give status to the ‘ community or home beat officer’ has been made following Lord Scarman 's ( 1981 ) report on the Brixton riots which gave something of a ‘ slap on the wrist’to the service , the deference accorded to specialist posting or to detective work remains untouched . In effect Jones 's book revealed an unwelcome truth which no one really wanted to hear and which the service was able easily to diffuse and ignore . Indeed when I was at the police college in 1987 and Jones was on the Senior Command Course prior to taking up a position as assistant chief constable , I took a straw poll among my immediate colleagues to see what influence such books achieve .
Idiom: sitting pretty (used idiomatically: no)
‘ Even as a little kid I used to gaze in motorcycle shop windows and wish I had something like this,’ says hell for leather Jackie , from Marske near Redcar . Eventually she hopes to be a winning road racer too . For the moment she 's just sitting pretty . REPUBLIC of Ireland B international full back Curtis Fleming has been put on stand - by for Middlesbrough 's Rumbelows League Cup semi - final second leg at Manchester United tomorrow night . The 23-year - old Fleming will be thrown into the Old Trafford cauldron if Gary Parkinson fails a fitness test .
Idiom: there's the rub (used idiomatically: yes)
To die , to sleep — To sleep — perchance to dream . Ay , there 's the rub . For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Idiom: hold court (used idiomatically: yes)
He thought it was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle . Must have been the trenchcoat . I left him to muse on my brilliance and joined Rex in the quiet corner , where the brat was holding court . ‘ I bring greetings from a distant star,’ said Chico Nixon . ‘ I have been made privy to the wisdom and knowledge of the Galactic Great Folk , and have returned here to solve all the world 's problems.’
Idiom: do the right thing (used idiomatically: no)
It is the Inner / Outer Face which causes the most heartache . The person beset by fears and anxieties who nevertheless manages to present a confident exterior will often feel self - contempt because he feels that he is living a lie and that one day someone will catch him out . The individual who is determined to remain calm in the face of aggression , even though he may feel he is doing the right thing , might wonder whether others look down on him and be tempted to behave as others think he should . The Outer Face : This is how other people really see us — and this is the Face we can not know unless we ask those whom we trust to tell us their true opinions . And how often those opinions can really surprise us ; a young woman patient who had four hearty older brothers told me that , although they always treated her well , she always felt completely insignificant beside them .