Cliché: back to the salt mines

Meaning: back to hard labor. Use examples.
Rewrite 1: back to labor camp
Rewrite 2: back to the plantation^origins
Rewrite 3: back to the ol’ 9-to-5
Rewrite 4: back to punching keys in the binaryⁿ³ mine

Comment: In rewrite 3, I was going more for the sense of the tyranny of the 9-to-5 job which is often perceived to be benal, with few mental challenges. In rewrite 4, I was going for the programming job which is often very demanding, offers long hours, and frequently occurs in deep, dark, dank work areas crowded with people with few social graces and little time to realize any.

More reading about clichés
What I found when I googled “clichés”:
• Around the Oval: “College football teams as Internet Clichés.”

Check out the new alphabetical list of all my cliché rewrites available in the archive list at the right. To search the page using Internet Explorer, just go to “Edit” in the top menu bar, select “Find”, then enter the cliché or a word from it.