Please read the blog post naturally. It is available at https://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/2017/09/06/rushed-off-my-feet-words-connected-with-hard-work/. You may feel it easier to read the post there. Thank you!
Rushed off my feet: words connected with hard work
By Liz Walter
Last month I wrote about laziness and doing nothing, but this month, when most people are back at work and school begins again (in the UK at least), the topic is the opposite: hard work and being busy.
There are several colourful idioms connected with having too much work to do. If you are “up to your eyes/eyeballs/neck/ears” in work, there is a very large amount of it to do. We can also say that we are “rushed off our feet” – this phrase is usually for when the work involves standing up or moving around, for example working in a shop or café. In UK English, an informal way of saying that a job or situation (for example, running a family) is busy is to say that “it’s all go”.
If you say you “have your hands full” with something, you mean that it takes up all your time and you can’t do anything else. You could also say that you “have a lot on your plate”. If you say you are “chasing your tail” or “running (a)round in circles,” you mean that you are very busy but not managing to achieve much. If people are trying hard to do something but they are in a panic and not being effective, they are “running (a)round like headless chickens”. Note that US English speakers usually say “around” while UK English speakers say either “around” or “round”.
If someone is working very hard at the moment, we can say that they “have their nose to the grindstone” or that they “have their head down”. These two phrases are often used for students who are trying to do well, especially when they are preparing for exams.
A general adjective for someone who works very hard is “hard-working”. A more formal word is “industrious”. If we describe someone as “conscientious,” we mean that they put a lot of effort into doing their work as well as they can. If someone is willing to “go the extra mile,” they do more than is necessary in order to do something as well as they possibly can. If it takes hard physical effort to do something (for example cleaning something) we say that it needs “elbow grease,” and if you want to say that you made an extreme amount of effort, you could say you “sweated blood” to achieve it.
I hope all this talk of “effort,” “exertion” and “slog” (informal) doesn’t make you feel tired – we all need to try to have a good “work-life balance,” so don’t “bust a gut” (work too hard)!
