vocabulary

Hands

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There are so many expressions containing the word hands (and feet!). How well do you know them?

Exercise 1

Grab a pen and paper (or just type into your Notes app or similar).

How many idioms and expressions can you think of containing the word hand or hands?

Hang onto your list, as you’ll need it soon!

Exercise 2

Can you fill in the blanks with a suitable expression? They all contain the word hand(s).

  1. “Why can’t you move the meeting to the following week? It would be much more convenient.” “I’m afraid my _______________. This was the only day the Village Hall was available to rent for our club meeting.”
  2. “Now I’ve shown you round the antimatter factory, I’ll leave you in my assistant’s _________________ for a tour of the Large Hadron Collider.”
  3. Veronica Walker is best known for writing a book about consecutive note-taking, but did you know she also _____________ in designing the SCIC Speech Repository? [note: this sentence is completely made up!]
  4. “You think we should collaborate with our political opponents on this project. I wouldn’t __________ the idea _________; it could definitely work to our advantage.”
  5. I think anyone who tries to lecture young people about the dangers of drugs needs to have experienced them ________________.
  6. The current owner of the bank is Swiss, but the company has________________ six times in the past decade.

  1. “Why can’t you move the meeting to the following week? It would be much more convenient.” “I’m afraid my hands are tied. This was the only day the Village Hall was available to rent for our club meeting.”
  2. “Now I’ve shown you round the antimatter factory, I’ll leave you in my assistant’s capable hands for a tour of the Large Hadron Collider.”
  3. Veronica Walker is best known for writing a book about consecutive note-taking, but did you know she also had a hand in designing the SCIC Speech Repository? [note: this sentence is completely made up!]
  4. “You think we should collaborate with our political opponents on this project. I wouldn’t dismiss the idea out of hand; it could definitely work to our advantage.”
  5. I think anyone who tries to lecture young people about the dangers of drugs needs to have experienced them firsthand.
  6. The current owner of the bank is Swiss, but the company has changed hands six times in the past decade.

Exercise 3

I’ve given you some definitions; can you fill in the appropriate expressions containing the word hand(s)?

to help someone??????????????
to get out of control
to be very busy with something
to have a go at something (e.g. a sport)
by far (e.g. ‘it’s by far the best thing I’ve tasted’)
to act on your own initiative, to act off your own bat (because no-one else is)
to be experienced at doing something
to admit that someone deserves praise or credit

to help someoneto lend/give someone a hand
to get out of controlto get out of hand
to be very busy with somethingto have your hands full with something
to have a go at something (e.g. a sport)to try your hand at
by far (e.g. ‘it’s by far the best thing I’ve tasted’)hands down
to act on your own initiative, to act off your own bat (because no-one else is)to take matters into your own hands
to be experienced at doing somethingto be an old hand
to admit that someone deserves praise or credit“I have to hand it to you”

Exercise 4

Can you match the explanation to the idiom?

to harm someone who is good to you or does things to help youto be caught with your hand in the cookie jar
it’s better to have a small (but certain) advantage than the possibility of a bigger oneto live from hand to mouth
to be caught doing something wrong or illegal or to be caught stealing something (often money)a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
not to know where your next meal is coming from; to survive on little moneyto bite the hand that feeds you

to harm someone who is good to you or does things to help youto bite the hand that feeds you
it’s better to have a small (but certain) advantage than the possibility of a bigger onea bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
to be caught doing something wrong or illegal or to be caught stealing something (often money)to be caught with your hand in the cookie jar
not to know where your next meal is coming from; to survive on little moneyto live from hand to mouth

At hand, to hand, on hand?

There are subtle distinctions here, complicated by differences between American English and British English.

To hand seems to be more common in British English. To me, it means an object that is physically nearby in case I need it:

“Keep your mobile phone to hand in case you need to take some photos.”

At hand means close in time or space. American English users would probably use at hand where I would say to hand. To me, it can mean something like ‘imminent’ or ‘it’s coming’ (‘retaliation is at hand’, ‘help is at hand’).

On hand means something closer to ‘available, nearby’: ‘The emergency services were on hand to give advice about heat exhaustion’.

Honestly, the distinctions are so small that it’s probably not worth worrying about whether you’re getting it wrong.

A poem to finish

Do you know this poem, one of my favourites, by Percy Bysshe Shelley?

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Verge, brink

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What’s the difference between being on the verge of something, and being on the brink? Is one of them more positive than the other? What synonyms can you use instead? Here’s the lowdown.

On the verge

A verge is an edge, border, or limit (it can be used literally, as in the grass verge on each side of a road).

To be on the verge of something means to be very close to doing or experiencing something.

It is used either + noun, or + -ing (e.g. ‘on the verge of resigning’). A person can also be driven to the verge of despair, or an animal species driven to the verge of extinction.

This makes it sound as if on the verge is always something negative, and indeed, the dictionary lists collapse, tears, death, disaster, and war as terms that go well with on the verge of, but this is not the case. You will also see examples like:

  • on the verge of a significant breakthrough
  • on the verge of becoming champions
  • on the verge of success

When on the verge is used with a noun, you can often use on the edge of as a synonym (e.g. He was on the edge of tears). Occasionally you can use threshold (for example: on the threshold of a major breakthrough).

By the way, you can also use verge as a verb: to verge on means ‘to be very close to’, ‘to border on’. For example:

His comment verges on slander (= comes very close to being slanderous).

Here are some examples from the Press:

  • Haiti on verge of collapse, NGOs warn
  • Swedish rightwing on verge of narrow election win
  • Liz Truss on verge of major U-turn on real-terms benefits cut
  • Why Italy is on verge of electing its first far-right leader since…
  • Germany’s Die Linke on verge of split over sanctions on Russia

On the brink

The brink, used literally, is the edge of a cliff. We talk about pulling someone back from the brink (for example, if you got a drug addict into rehab and they made a good recovery).

Metaphorically, the brink refers to a critical point, the point where a different, and usually dangerous, situation, is about to begin.

While you may read examples like We are on the brink of a major new discovery, The company is poised on the brink of success, or They are on the brink of making a breakthrough, my feeling is that most of the time, ‘brink’ is used in a negative sense:

  • on the brink of famine
  • on the brink of ruin
  • on the brink of collapse
  • on the brink of civil war
  • on the brink of extinction
  • on the brink of bankruptcy
  • on the brink of disaster

Like verge, on the brink is used + noun or + -ing (e.g. The situation is on the brink of descending into chaos).

Two useful phrases for you: teetering on the brink (e.g. The company is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy). Here you can clearly see the meaning of ‘cliff-edge’, because teetering means you’re about to fall off, i.e. things are about to go pear-shaped.

If something good is about to happen, rather than a disaster, you would use poised: They are poised on the brink of success.

Here are some examples from the Press:

  • World on brink of five ‘disastrous’ climate tipping points
  • Liz Truss’s government on the brink after Suella Braverman’s parting shot
  • Unions on brink of ‘synchronised’ strikes, says RMT’s Mick Lynch
  • How Liz Truss plunged the UK to the brink of recession
  • Back from the brink: how bison, bears and beavers returned to the wild
  • Polls put Lula on brink of comeback victory over Bolsonaro
  • The online clothing retailer Missguided is teetering on the brink of collapse after being issued a winding-up petition by clothing suppliers
  • Europe on the brink: the states battling to stave off recession

Brinkmanship

Do you know the word brinkmanship? In politics, it means trying to get what you want by saying that if you don’t get it, you’ll do something dangerous.

The collocation engaging in brinkmanship is often used to describe what is basically a game of chicken between two groups or politicians!

Here’s an example from the papers:

“Dominic Raab accuses EU of ‘brinkmanship‘ over vaccine supply threat”

Cusp

You may have encountered on the cusp of and wondered if the meaning was the same.

The cusp is the dividing line between two different things.

For example, I could say that my daughter is on the cusp of adulthood. Cusp is often used to mark a transition between two states.

By the way, it also has a meaning in astrology: if you are ‘on the cusp of Leo and Virgo’, this means you were born within 3 days before or after the change of astrological signs.

Here are some examples from the Press:

  • Techies think we’re on the cusp of a virtual world called the Metaverse
  • Social care is on the cusp of a crisis – The Guardian
  • Congress is on the cusp of passing the most pivotal bill in years
  • Owners on cusp of selling Selfridges to Thai group for £4bn
  • IMF warns world economy may soon be on the cusp of recession

Synonyms

Here are some synonyms for the idea of being on the verge or on the brink of something:

  • ready to…
  • about to…
  • on the point of…
  • imminent
  • impending
  • inescapable
  • inevitable

There are other options: you could use words like looming or on the horizon, but they seem more distant in time.

In summary

Frankly, in many contexts, on the verge and on the brink can be used interchangeably.

If there is a difference to be found, it is that on the brink of is more negative.