Cliché: to pound the pavement

(entered for 01.25.06)

Meaning: to get busy on something. Idiom.
Rewrite 1: leave treadⁿ⁶ marks on the pavement
Rewrite 2: make smoke on the track
Rewrite 3: light a fire under the skillet
Rewrite 4: whip some air into the soufflé

Comment: Although this cliché is often used to describe effort in finding employment, it can also mean getting busy. It’s easy to get sidetracked in this one to connote energy rather than action.

More reading about clichés
What I found when I googled “clichés”:
• Caught in Historical Clichés: By Praful Bidwai. “The current debate on school textbooks, especially history textbooks…”

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.