A dictionary of Confusable Phrases: More Than 10,000 Idioms and Collocations

half-way • middle-of-the-road
half-way —
1
. situated midway between two points, stages
of a journey, etc.: A half way station was added where visitors
can break their journey with a visit to the nearby Bronze Age
gun chamber
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Copper Mine. 2. (of a situation) midway between two states
or conditions: In this situation, half way between dictatorship
and democracy, the military institution has set limits to the
range of behaviors of civilian politicians.
middle-of-the-road —
1
. (of a person or a course of action)
moderate and unadventurous; tending to avoid extremes: They
wanted him, the old middle-of-the-road liberal democrat, to
be their first president. 2. (of music, style of dress, etc.) conven-
tional, standard or mainstream: Randy Wood put out some
records — not country music or downright jazz but what he
called “middle of the road music.”
ham and egger • like ham and eggs
ham and egger —(U.S. sl., pejor.) 
1
. no one special; just an
ordinary person: I hated this movie and I am a ham and egger
who can pretty much sit through anything. 2. (Boxing ) an
amateur boxer, especially of mediocre skills: Wayka is what
an earlier generation of sportswriters might have referred to
derisively as a “ham-and-egger.”
like ham and eggs —
1
. said of two things that usually go
together and which it is hard to separate: Camping and fishing
go together like ham and eggs. 2. used in allusion to the apho-
rism “It’s like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved. The pig is
committed” to emphasize the difference between merely mak-
ing a contribution and being fully committed: “What would
keep you from taking this position?” “Lack of commitment
by the administration. It’s a little like ham and eggs. You know,
the chicken is a participant, the hog is committed.”