English Vocabulary in Use: Advanced Book with Answers and Enhanced eBook Vocabulary Reference and Practice 3rd Edition

keep a (close) eye on someone/something, 
you watch them carefully. If you say that 
something is 
in safe hands, you mean that the person in charge is capable. If you say that something 
goes hand in hand with something else, you mean that they exist together and are interconnected: 
Rights 
go hand in hand with responsibilities. If you talk about doing something using a rule of 
thumb, you mean you are calculating something in a way that is not exact but will allow you to be 
accurate enough.
Common metaphorical concepts in English
Many words in English are so frequently used in a metaphorical way that English speakers may no 
longer notice that they are metaphors. Here are some examples:
• Intelligence and understanding are equated with light; for example, a clever person is called 
bright and a less intelligent person dim. If you see the light, you understand something. To cast 
light on something means making it easier to understand: The discovery of the poet’s letters has 
cast light on his troubled relationship with his brother.
• Intensity of feeling or passion is equated with temperature; someone who is enthusiastic at one 
time and not at another is said to 
blow hot and cold. If someone is hotheaded, then they react 
quickly on the basis of their feelings without thinking first. If you call someone 
cold-hearted, then 
you think they are without feeling.
• The movement of people or traff ic is equated with the movement of water; we can, for example, 
talk of people 
flooding or trickling out of a hall, or say there was a constant stream of traff ic past 
the window.
• Time is likened to money; both are seen as commodities that can be 
spent or wasted or used