Bringing Home the Bacon on the Gravy Train

Activity I) What do you think these expressions mean?

Bob works hard to bring home the bacon
1
, and put bread and butter
2
on his family's table.
Every morning, he drags himself to his desk at the bank and faces his tedious 10houraday !ob.
"is boss, #ark, is a bad egg
$
but has somehow taken a liking to Bob so he always speaks well of
Bob in front of #r. %avies, the owner and big cheese
&
of the company. #ark tells #r. %avies
that Bob's the cream o the crop
'
and is one smart cookie
(
who uses his nood!es
)
. #ark likes
to che" the at
*
with Bob during coffee break and discusses ha!#baked
+
company plans with
him because he trusts Bob and knows that Bob won't spi!! the beans
10
behind his back. ,n these
occasions, Bob tries to avoid any hot potatoes
11
and, even if #ark isn't his cup o tea
12
, Bob
makes an effort to butter him up
1$
by leading #ark into discussions about electronic gadgets
which #ark is nuts about
1&
. Bob really thinks that #ark is out to !unch
1'
and nutty as a
ruitcake
1(
, but in a nutshe!!
1)
, if he po!ishes the app!e
1*
, his !ob could become a piece o
cake
1+
and maybe one day he will find his gravy train
20
.
-his is definitely an e.aggerated use of idiomatic e.pressions. But you can see how these
e.pressions make spoken informal language much more colourful and !ovial.
Activity II) Ho" good is your ood#idiom intuition?
"ere are some nonfood idiom e.pressions which you can use to substitute the food idioms in
/ctivity 0. 1heck answers with your teacher.
2,23,,% E456E770,27 3,,% 0%0,#7
/ boss & big cheese
B food
1 very easy
% on the table but still unofficial
E the best
3 continues to be servile and
brownnose his boss

8 scoundrel
" make a living
0 is an intelligent person
9 show admiration
: basically
; share confidential information
# means to a big income with
little effort

2 chat
, thinks
5 a little out of touch with reality
< problematic issues
6 a little cra=y
7 really likes
- the type of person he likes