Idioms connected with problematic situation

I spilled the beans on our project. → The beans were spilled on our project.
Fixed
The old man kicked the bucket. → The bucket was kicked (by the old man).
Many fixed idioms lack semantic composition, meaning that the idiom contains the semantic role of a verb, but not of any object. This is true of kick the bucket, which means die. By contrast, the semantically composite idiom spill the beans, meaning reveal a secret, contains both a semantic verb and object, reveal and secret. Semantically composite idioms have a syntactic similarity between their surface and semantic forms.^[10]
The types of movement allowed for certain idiom also relate to the degree to which the literal reading of the idiom has a connection to its idiomatic meaning. This is referred to as motivation or transparency. While most idioms that do not display semantic composition generally do not allow non-adjectival modification, those that are also motivated allow lexical substitution.^[11] For example, oil the wheels and grease the wheels allow variation for nouns that elicit a similar literal meaning.^[12] These types of changes can occur only when speakers can easily recognize a connection between what the idiom is meant to express and its literal meaning, thus an idiom like kick the bucket cannot occur as kick the pot.
From the perspective of dependency grammar, idioms are represented as a catena which cannot be interrupted by non-idiomatic content. Although syntactic modifications introduce disruptions to the idiomatic structure, this continuity is only required for idioms as lexical entries.^[13]
Certain idioms, allowing unrestricted syntactic modification, can be said to be metaphors. Expressions such as jump on the bandwagon, pull strings, and draw the line all represent their meaning independently in their verbs and objects, making them compositional. In the idiom jump on the bandwagon, jump on involves joining something and a 'bandwagon' can refer to a collective cause, regardless of context.^[10]
Translating idioms
A literal word-by-word translation of an opaque idiom will most likely not convey the same meaning in other languages. The English idiom kick the bucket has a variety of equivalents in other languages, such as kopnąć w kalendarz ("kick the calendar") in Polish, casser sa pipe ("to break his pipe") in French^[14] and tirare le cuoia ("pulling the leathers") in Italian.^[15]
Some idioms are transparent.^[16] Much of their meaning does get through if they are taken (or translated) literally. For example, lay one's cards on the table meaning to reveal previously unknown intentions, or to reveal a secret. Transparency is a matter of degree; spill the beans (to let secret information become known) and leave no stone unturned (to do everything possible in order to achieve or find something) are not entirely literally interpretable, but only involve a slight metaphorical broadening. Another category of idioms is a word having several meanings, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes discerned from the context of its usage. This is seen in the (mostly uninflected) English language in polysemes, the common use of the same word for an activity, for those engaged in it, for the product used, for the place or time of an activity, and sometimes for a verb.
Idioms tend to confuse those unfamiliar with them; students of a new language must learn its idiomatic expressions as vocabulary. Many natural language words have idiomatic origins, but are assimilated, so losing their figurative senses, for example, in Portuguese, the expression saber de coração 'to know by heart', with the same meaning as in English, was shortened to 'saber de cor', and, later, to the verb decorar, meaning memorize.
In 2015, TED collected 40 examples of bizarre idioms that cannot be translated literally. They include the Swedish saying "to slide in on a shrimp sandwich", which refers to somebody who didn't have to work to get where they are.^[17]
Conversely, idioms may be shared between multiple languages. For example, the Arabic phrase في نفس المركب (fi nafs al-markab) is translated as "in the same boat," and it carries the same figurative meaning as the equivalent idiom in English.
According to German linguist Elizabeth Piirainen, the idiom "to get on one's nerves" has the same figurative meaning in57 European languages. She also says that the phrase "to shed crocodile tears,"—meaning to express insincere sorrow—is similarly widespread in European languages, but is also used in Arabic, Swahili, Persian, Chinese, Mongolian, and several others.
The origin of cross-language idioms is uncertain. One theory is that cross-language idioms are a language contact phenomenon, resulting from a word-for-word translation called a calque. Piirainen says that this may happen as a result of lingua franca usage; speakers incorporate expressions from their own native tongue, exposing them to speakers of other languages. Other theories suggest they come from a shared ancestor language or that humans are naturally predisposed to develop certain metaphors.
Dealing with non-compositionality
The non-compositionality of meaning of idioms challenges theories of syntax. The fixed words of many idioms do not qualify as constituents in any sense. For example:
How do we get to the bottom of this situation?
The fixed words of this idiom (in bold) do not form a constituent in any theory's analysis of syntactic structure because the object of the preposition (here this situation) is not part of the idiom (but rather it is an argument of the idiom). One can know that it is not part of the idiom because it is variable; for example, How do we get to the bottom of this situation / the claim / the phenomenon / her statement / etc. What this means is that theories of syntax that take the constituent to be the fundamental unit of syntactic analysis are challenged. The manner in which units of meaning are assigned to units of syntax remains unclear. This problem has motivated a tremendous amount of discussion and debate in linguistics circles and it is a primary motivator behind the Construction Grammar framework.^[18]
A relatively recent development in the syntactic analysis of idioms departs from a constituent-based account of syntactic structure, preferring instead the catena-based account. The catena unit was introduced to linguistics by William O'Grady in 1998. Any word or any combination of words that are linked together by dependencies qualifies as a catena.^[19] The words constituting idioms are stored as catenae in the lexicon, and as such, they are concrete units of syntax. The dependency grammar trees of a few sentences containing non-constituent idioms illustrate the point:

The fixed words of the idiom (in orange) in each case are linked together by dependencies; they form a catena. The material that is outside of the idiom (in normal black script) is not part of the idiom. The following two trees illustrate proverbs:

The fixed words of the proverbs (in orange) again form a catena each time. The adjective nitty-gritty and the adverb always are not part of the respective proverb and their appearance does not interrupt the fixed words of the proverb. A caveat concerning the catena-based analysis of idioms concerns their status in the lexicon. Idioms are lexical items, which means they are stored as catenae in the lexicon. In the actual syntax, however, some idioms can be broken up by various functional constructions.
The catena-based analysis of idioms provides a basis for an understanding of meaning compositionality. The Principle of Compositionality can in fact be maintained. Units of meaning are being assigned to catenae, whereby many of these catenae are not constituents.
Various studies have investigated methods to develop the ability to interpret idioms in children with various diagnoses including Autism, Moderate Learning Difficulties, Developmental Language Disorder ^[ and typically developing weak readers.
Multiword expression
A multiword expression is "lexical units larger than a word that can bear both idiomatic and compositional meanings. (...) the term multi-word expression is used as a pre-theoretical label to include the range of phenomena that goes from collocations to fixed expressions." It is a problem in natural language processing when trying to translate lexical units such as idioms.
Idioms exist in every language. They are words or phrases that aren't meant to be taken literally. For example, if you say someone has "cold feet," it doesn't mean their toes are actually cold. Rather, it means they're nervous about something.

Idioms can't be deduced merely by studying the words in the phrase. If taken literally, you would think that someone with cold feet has… cold feet. But, after living with a certain group of people for a period of time, you'll start to pick up their expressions. Let's explore some idiom examples in American everyday language, international language, and the language of the arts.

Common Idioms

The examples below demonstrate how you can't really deduce the meaning of these expressions without knowing what they mean. The next time someone says they're feeling "under the weather," you'll know it has nothing to do with weather patterns, but rather that they're feeling quite ill.
Getting fired turned out to be a blessing in disguise. - Getting fired (normally a negative event) turned out to be a good thing.
These red poppies are a dime a dozen. - These red poppies are very common.
Don't beat around the bush. - Just say what you really mean.
After some reflection, he decided to bite the bullet. - After some reflection, he decided to do the undesirable thing he was avoiding.
I'm going to call it a night. - I'm going to bed.
He's got a chip on his shoulder. - He's holding onto a grudge or grievance that's making him very angry or callous.
Would you cut me some slack? - Don't be so hard on me.
Don't cut any corners. - Don't take any shortcuts and produce shoddy work.
She let things get out of hand. - She lets things get out of control.
I'm going back to the drawing board. - I'm going to start over.
Hang in there. - Stick with it.
Don't jump the gun. - Don't do something before the allotted time.
He decided to let her off the hook. - He decided to release her from her responsibility.
He missed the boat. - He missed out on an opportunity.
I go out for walks once in a blue moon. - I go out for walks very rarely.
Pull yourself together, man! - Calm down.
She seriously rubbed me the wrong way. - I did not like her at all.
There he is, speak of the devil. - There he is; we were just talking about him.
That was the straw that broke the camel's back. - My patience has finally run out.
Well, she's got the best of both worlds. - She's receiving benefits from both of her current situations or opportunities.
Why are you so bent out of shape? - Why are you so upset?
I'm feeling under the weather. - I'm feeling sick.
We'll cross that bridge when we get there. - We'll solve that problem when the time comes.
I'm sorry but I just can't seem to wrap my head around it. - I'm sorry but I just can't seem to understand.
Wow, you can say that again. - I totally agree.
Idioms Around the Globe
Americans aren't unique in their use of idioms. Where there's language, there's figurative language. That is, people are going to play on words and come up with quippy, new expressions. Let's take a look at some of our global neighbors' idioms:

In Armenian, "stop ironing my board" means stop bothering me.

In French, "when chickens have teeth" means something's never going to happen.
Also in French, "I have other cats to whip" means I have other things to do.
In German, "to tie a bear to someone" means you've tricked them.
Also in German, "an elephant made out of a fly" means to make a big deal out of nothing.
In Italian, "not all doughnuts come with a hole" means you don't always get what you want.
Also in Italian, "to treat someone with a fish in their face" means to disrespect someone.
In Japanese, "my cheeks are falling off" means the food is really delicious.
Also in Japanese, "to have dumplings instead of flowers" means you've chosen something useful over something decorative.
In Polish, "mustard after lunch" means it's too late to do something.
Also in Polish, to "get stuffed with hay" means someone's asking you to go away.
In Portuguese, "he who doesn't have a dog, hunts with cats" means you make the most of what you've been given.
Also in Portuguese, "take your little horse away from the rain" means something's never going to happen.

In Spanish, "a cat in gloves catches no mice" means nice guys always finish last.

Also in Spanish, "a lot of noise and no walnuts" means someone's all talk and no action.
It's very important to have a firm understanding of each culture's idioms. The terminology that one country uses can have a vastly different meaning in another country. For example, in Finnish, "with long teeth" means you're doing something you don't want to do. However, in French, to "have long teeth" means you're very ambitious. Quite different, right?
Idioms In the Arts
Similar to various cultures who adopt their own set of idioms, smaller groups of people do the same. Actors, painters, performers, and writers tend to use their own idioms, almost bordering on slang, to encourage each other and forge a unique sense of community. Here are some of the most popular idioms used in the art world:
"Break a leg" means good luck.
When you encourage someone to "break a leg," you might also want to encourage them to "knock 'em dead" or do a great job.
When you encourage a friend to "sing their heart out" before a performance, you're encouraging them to give it their all (and have some fun).
"Get the hook" means it's time to pull an actor off the stage because he's performing horribly.
If you need to "get the hook," the actor most likely "bombed," meaning he was so terrible.
If an actor "bombed," then they're likely to be "upstaged" by another actor who performed better.
If you're excited to "sink your teeth" into a new book, it means you're really excited to start reading it.
If an artist "breaks new ground," it means his work is important and innovative.
Remember, a group of people with shared interests will have their own idioms. As with anything else in life, they'll be easier to understand if you listen to the context clues and ask questions when in doubt.
Language and Idioms
You simply can't be literal when examining an idiom. They tend to make learning a new language difficult, but they're also used in languages all across the globe. Idioms aren't only regional; they also vary according to people's interests and social groups.
The best way to understand the meaning of certain idioms is to chat with locals and ask them for clarification if any of their idioms confuse you. If all else fails, talk to your friend Google, and make sure what you heard is really what it means.