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by Kate Woodford

Regular readers of this blog often ask us for posts on English idioms used now in contemporary English. One way we make sure we provide up-to-date idioms is by looking at those used in current newspaper articles. The expressions included in this week’s post are taken from a range of national newspapers that were published on June 16, 2025.

A broadsheet newspaper describes how a young person who got a job with a big tech company felt he had ‘landed on his feet’. If you land on your feet (and in UK English also fall on your feet), you are lucky, getting into a good situation, especially after a difficult period.

In the same paper, a famous singer said she ‘keeps an eye on’ her children’s mobile phone use. If you keep an eye on a thing or person, you watch and take care of them, making sure they are safe.

With the wedding of a famous couple in the news, there is discussion on the same page around who usually ‘picks up the tab’ for a wedding. If you pick up the tab for an item or an occasion, especially one that other people benefit from, you pay for it.

In the newspaper’s obituary for a famous musician, it says that the musician’s family, like all families, ‘had its ups and downs’. The phrase ups and downs refers to the combination of positive and negative experiences that are part of most situations or relationships.

On the letters page of the same paper, a correspondent says she ‘couldn’t agree more’ with a journalist who wrote an article in the last edition of the paper. If you say you couldn’t agree/disagree more, you mean you agree or disagree completely.

Another paper focuses on a big music festival that is about to happen, predicting that the weather for that outdoor event will be ‘a mixed bag of sunshine and showers’. A mixed bag is a situation that involves a variety of things, often good things mixed with bad. In another article on the festival, it is reported that a famous singer is promising a performance that will be ‘all killer, no filler’. The fairly new idiom all killer, no filler means that every part of a record or performance, etc. is excellent, with no boring parts added simply to fill the time.

In the sports pages of the same paper, a journalist writes that a professional golfer has ‘set his sights on’ qualifying for a major tournament. To set your sights on a goal is to decide that you want to achieve it. In the same article, the golfer is described as ‘no stranger to getting the job done’, having already won a famous tournament. If you are no stranger to something, you have personal experience of it. This is a rather formal idiom.

A third newspaper features a common UK idiom in the sports pages. A famous footballer, it reports, finished the final game for his club ‘in floods of tears’. Someone who is in floods of tears is crying a lot.

I hope this post has introduced you to one or two new idioms. I’ll be back with another newspaper idioms post in a couple of months.