Шушунова Наиболее употребителные идиоматические 2011
.pdf6.If people say it's "par for the course" when a train arrives late, it means the train is
a)usually on time.
b)always on time.
c)often late.
7.His father told him not to put all his eggs in the one basket, so Arthur
a)studied law as well as graphic design.
b)bought several more baskets.
c)invested all his money in his father's company.
8.People have been living in the Nile valley since the year dot. They've been there
a)for an extremely long time.
b)since the tenth century.
c)for quite a while.
9.We don't have a lot of time to discuss the issue, so we'll have to zero in on
a)lots of unimportant details.
b)everything that is connected in any way.
c)the most important points.
10.If a zero-tolerance policy on crime is adopted, people are sent to jail after
a)their first offence.
b)their first chance.
c)their first warning.
Unit 3
Idioms: People in business
angel investor
an individual who invests in a company during its start-up phase; a financial supporter in the early stages of a corporation's existence;
инвестор, готовый вкладывать в компанию на начальном этапе её функционирования;
• The company never would have survived without the backing of its angel investors.
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Origin: An 'angel' is a winged creature from heaven who is supposed to help you when you are in danger. An 'angel investor' is someone who provides money for young businesses that really need it. The phrase was first used to describe wealthy patrons who kept Broadway plays on stage despite a lack of profits.
bad egg
a trouble maker; someone who has a bad attitude and causes trouble;
непутевый, никудышный человек;
•Emily is a real bad egg -- she's always starting fights and causing trouble.
•We have to get rid of the bad eggs in the accounting department.
Note: In this phrase, 'egg' means 'person' or 'individual'. This is probably because the human head looks a lot like an egg. A bad egg, then, is a simply a bad person. There is a similar phrase to describe a good person
– a 'good egg'. bean counter
an accountant; someone who monitors the flow of money very carefully;
бухгалтер;
• We wanted to buy some new furniture for the office but the bean counters wouldn't let us.
Origin: This phrase comes from a comedy routine that was popular in New York in the 1880s. In the routine, a man would order some pork and beans and then would yell "And don't stop to count the beans!" The idea is that it is not necessary to count each and every bean, and that anyone who does is a little bit crazy -- and cheap.
bear (n)
someone who expects the prices of shares to fall, so they sell them;
спекулянт, играющий на понижение; bull (n)
someone who expects the price of shares to rise and may buy them so they can sell them later at a profit; спекулянт, играющий на повышение;
big gun
a powerful or important person or group of people; ‘шишка’, важная фигура;
• They've hired a big gun to represent them in court. big wig / big wheel / big cheese/ big shot
an important, powerful or famous person; важная персона, шишка;
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•My brother was a big wig at Enron before he went to jail for tax evasion.
•Of course it's a good idea, but the big wigs will never agree to do it. Origin: Hundreds of years ago, judges, bishops and assorted nobles wore wigs while in the royal court. (In England, some still do!) The wig was a symbol of power and prestige, and the phrase refers to this strange, old practice.
boys in the backroom [pl.] [AmE]
a group of men making decisions behind the scenes; хитрые и умные политики и их окружение;
•The boys in the backroom have decided too many things in the past. Their day is over.
company man
a person who always work hard for his company and supports the company policies; фанатично преданный фирме сотрудник;
•My father was a company man and he always put in an extra effort for his company.
corporate raider
a person or organization that tries to take control of a company by buying a large number of its shares, usually with great aggression and conflict; захватчик компаний;
•I lost my job when the company I worked for was bought out by corporate raiders.
Origin: This term emerged in the 1980s, when financiers on Wall Street used very aggressive tactics to buy and sell companies for quick profit.
(an) eager beaver (inf.)
someone who is extremely enthusiastic and enjoys working extremely hard; работящий человек, работяга, трудяга;
Origin: Beavers are often associated with hard work, as they spend a lot of time building shelters and dams out of mud and wood.
entrepreneur
someone who uses money to start businesses and make business deals;
бизнесмен, делец, предприниматель; fat cat (inf.)
a very rich and powerful person, usually in business or politics. This word shows that you dislike people like this; денежный мешок,
толстосум, воротила ( в бизнесе или политике); CEOs and top senior executives are sometimes referred to as ‘fat cats’ because of the
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enormous pay packages and rewards they are offered when joining a company.
• In a populist style, he promised to eliminate fat-cat salaries for union bosses and increase worker wages and job security.
guinea pig
someone who is used in an experiment; подопытный кролик
•The prisoners were used as guinea pigs by their government. hired gun
a temporary employee hired to do a difficult task; независимый сотрудник-эксперт, специалист, 'вольный стрелок' работающий как член команды;
•Greedie Corp. is using some hired guns to handle the latest round of layoffs.
Origin: In the 1800s, a 'hired gun' was an armed man paid to protect a town from thieves and bandits in the American West. In the 1920s, 'hired gun' came to mean 'hit man' or 'assassin' among American gangsters. Now the term is used in corporations to describe specialists who are typically very aggressive or responsible for unpleasant, highlevel tasks.
kingpin – the most important person in a group or organization; важное лицо, центральная фигура;
Origin: The expression comes from the game of bowling. The kingpin is the number one pin. If hit correctly with the bowling ball, the kingpin will make all the other nine pins fall. And that is the object of the game. So, the most important person in a project or business is the kingpin. If the kingpin is removed, the business or project is likely to fail.
Kingpin is often used to describe an important criminal, or the leader of a criminal gang. A newspaper may report, for example, that police have arrested the suspected kingpin of a car-stealing operation.
lame duck
1)a politician or a government that no longer has any real power or authority; политик/ правительство, которому грозит отставка; не у дел; неудачник;
2)a company that is losing a lot of money; ч.-л. неэффективное,
ослабленное; компания в тяжелом положении; слабак, неудачник;
• A bad defeat for his party in October risks making him a lame duck for the remaining two years of his presidency.
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•We don’t have time to fix broken companies and we won’t be buying any lame ducks.
NOTE: You can use lame duck before a noun.
•It is not proper to use British taxpayer’s money to support lame-duck industries.
loan shark
a person who lends out money, at a very high rate of interest and with
the threat of violence if the loan is not repaid quickly; ростовщик;
• I had to see a loan shark to cover my $100,000 gambling debt. magnate /mogul/ tycoon
rich and successful person with power and influence who head organizations; промышленный / финансовый магнат ;
• a media / film / supermarket mogul • a media tycoon
• a media / oil / shipping magnate
mover(s) and shaker(s) [ often plural] – someone who is powerful or has a lot of influence; активные деятели, двигатели прогресса;
Origin: This comes from the poem “Ode” by Arthur O’Shaugnessy (1874):
“We are the music-makers
And we are the dreamers of dreams. We are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems. one of the boys/ girls / family
to be accepted as a part of a group of people; свой парень, наш человек, свой в доску и т.д.
• He always wants to be one of the boys, but he's too young to join the gang.
people person
someone who likes being with other people and who is good at working with people; общительный человек, экстраверт;
•Holly is a great stewardess - she likes to fly and she's a real people person!
•Jane is not a people person. Luckily, her job does not require her to spend a lot of time with clients.
Origin: This term became popular in the 1990s. It was first used in corporations as a way to describe friendly people who are good at sales and customer service.
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repo man (inf.)
one who seizes property and returns it to its owners; usually, the term refers to someone who takes cars back to the car dealer, when the driver of the car has failed to pay for it in full; человек, занимающийся конфискацией взятых в кредит автомашин из-за долгов; судебный пристав;
• Maya was having trouble paying her bills, so it was no surprise to hear the repo man knocking on her door.
Origin: ‘Repo’ is short for ‘repossess’, meaning ‘to take back property’. A film called “Repo Man”, about a man who repossesses cars in southern California, was popular in the 1980’s.
sleeping partner / silent partner [BrE]
someone who invests money in a business but does not help to manage it; пассивный партнер, компаньон, не участвующий активно в ведении дел;
•He works alone, but his business is partly financed by a sleeping partner.
techie
someone who knows a lot about technology and computers; Pronounced 'tek-ee';
•My pal Aizaz is a techie at Distance Learning, Inc.
•Our computer firm is looking for a few techies to finish a big programming project.
Origin: 'Tech' is a common short form of 'technology', and the '-ie' at the end signifies that the word applies to a person. This term emerged in the early 1980s, as computers became increasingly popular.
top banana (inf)
the most important person in a group; самый главный, ведущий актер,
влиятельное лицо;
Origin: A top banana is the leading person in a comedy show. The funniest comedian is called the top banana. The next is second banana. And so on. Why a banana? A comedy act in earlier days often included a part where one of the comedians would hit the others over the head with a soft object. The object was shaped like a yellow fruit: the banana. Top banana still is used mainly in show business. Yet the expression also can be used to describe the top person in any area.
top dog (inf)
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the best , most important, or most powerful person, often the winner in a competition; лучший в своей области, лидер;
•She’s top dog in cosmetics today. wear many hats
someone who wears many hats has to do many different types of tasks or play a variety of roles;
•Our company is small so the employees need to be flexible and accept to wear many hats.
whizz-kid (inf)
a young person who is very intelligent or successful; преуспевающий талантливый молодой человек (особенно в области политики или бизнеса)
yes man
an employee who always agree with the boss or does whatever the boss says; подпевала, подхалим
•Don’t expect Larry to argue with the boss. He’s a yes man.
yuppie
someone who is young, earns a lot of money, and lives in a city in a style that is too expensive for most people. This word usually shows that you dislike people like this; яппи (отчасти ироническое название для молодых людей, стремящихся к карьерному росту, в полном противоречии с предшествующим молодежным идеалом, носителями которого были хиппи)
• Tom is a classic yuppie -- he has an expensive car, an expensive apartment, and an expensive wife.
Origin: Although yuppies are less visible now than in the boom years of the 1980s, when the word was invented. Comes from the first letters of the phrase 'Young Urban Professional'
Unit 4
Business idioms found in newspapers & magazine
bailout (mainly AmE)
money that someone gives or lends to a person or organization with financial problems;
bear market
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a situation in the stock market in which the prices of shares are falling;
рынок, на котором наблюдается тенденция к снижению курсов (акций);
bull market
a situation in which prices of shares on the stock market are rising;
рынок, на котором наблюдается тенденция к повышению курсов (акций);
go bellyup (inf)
if a company goes belly-up, it loses all of its money; лопнуть,
обанкротиться (о компании, фирме и т.п.); всплывать ‘кверху пузом’;
• The restaurant went belly-up before the end of the first year.
Origin: Fish turn over on their backs when they die. So they are stomach, or belly, up.
cash cow
a product or business that earns a lot of money, especially when this money is used to pay for something else; продукт, пользующийся большим спросом; ‘дойная корова‘;
• His latest invention turned out to be a real cash cow.
Note: The reference is to something that produces money as freely as a cow produces milk.
calculated risk
a risk that you take after carefully considering the possible results;
обдуманный риск, риск с точно рассчитанными шансами на успех; daylight robbery [U], [BrE], spoken
charging too much money; used for saying that you think something is much too expensive; грабеж (среди бела дня);
have a finger in every pie (inf)
to be involved in many different activities; участвовать, принимать участие, быть замешанным в к.-л. деле;
• He has a finger in every pie and never short of ideas for making the next buck.
flying visit
a very short visit; короткое посещение, мимолетный визит ; glass ceiling
an unfair system that prevents some people, especially women, or people from ethnic or religious minorities, from reaching the most senior positions in a company or organization; невидимый барьер,
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карьерный потолок (ущемляющий права женщин, религиозных или этнических меньшинств);
golden handcuffs [pl.]
ways of trying to stop a senior manager in a company from leaving their job, by offering a lot of money if they stay and making them lose money if they leave; льготы или привилегии, благодаря которым сотрудникам невыгодно работать на какого-либо другого работодателя;
• Company pensions were the golden handcuffs which chained staff to a company.
golden handshake (also handshake) [BrE]
a large amount of money given to a senior employee when he or she leaves a company, especially when they are being forced to leave;
большое выходное пособие ( служащему, от которого хотят избавиться) ;
•200 university lecturers were made redundant with golden handshakes averaging £ 80,000.
•The retiring chief executive received a handshake of $ 27 million. golden hello
a large amount of money given to someone for accepting an important
job; большой аванс, предлагаемый сотруднику при устройстве на новое рабочее место (использующийся работодателем в качестве ‘приманки’);
•They hired anybody, giving six-figure hellos to anyone willing to break a contract.
golden parachute
an arrangement in which a senior employee of a company will be paid a large amount of money if they lose job, for example if the company is sold , or if they are forced to leave their job in the future;
•The golden parachutes were in place to give the top people a big payoff should the company be acquired.
the handwriting is on the wall [AmE] / the writing is on the wall [BrE]
If you say that the handwriting is on the wall, you mean that you have noticed things which strongly suggest that a situation is going to become difficult or unpleasant; зловещее предзнаменование;
‘The handwriting is on the wall,’ writes an IT specialist at the Bank of America. Until recently the bank needed talent so badly it had to outbid
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rivals. But last fall, his entire 15-engineer team was told their jobs were redundant. Bank of America has already slashed 3,700 of its 25,000 technical and back-office jobs and more are to follow.’
level playing field [singular]
a situation that is fair for all the people involved; равные условия,
честная игра; long odds (inf) little chance; lost cause
someone or something that will never succeed or improve; безнадежная вещь;
money spinner (inf.), esp [BrE]
if an activity is a money spinner, it is a very successful way of making money; приносящий большой доход;
•The seaside hotels are real money spinners. monkey business [U] (inf.)
dishonest or bad behaviour; темные дела, нечестный бизнес;
махинации;
•The results announced seem suspicious. I think there’s some monkey business going on!
nail the deadline meet a deadline;
(the) nitty-gritty (of) (inf.) get down to the nitty-gritty
the most basic aspects of a situation or an activity that must be dealt with, even if they are unpleasant; практически важный; будничный,
но жизненно необходимый;
• OK, let's get down to the nitty-gritty - what do I need to do to get rid of him?
the nuts and bolts (of something)
the basic details of a job or activity; тонкости, детали;
•First, you need to know the nuts and bolts of the business. ostrich strategy / politics
this term refers to the phenomenon of ignoring or evading an obvious problem in the hope that it will resolve itself or disappear; политика/
стратегия , основанная на самообмане;
•Adopting an ostrich strategy will only make matters worse – we’ve got to find a solution!
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