Headlines and More (Idioms): 
Vancouver Sun, The Globe and Mail, CBC's Most Wanted Words

Boobyqueue. This is the line in a store which is the slowest moving. If you choose it, you have chosen the boobyqueue. (CBC, Most Wanted Words; word invented November, 1999) We already have an idiom called booby prize. This is a prize, which no one wants to win. It is a kind of a joke prize.

When you sleep at night and the sheets make some lines on your face, these can be called shrinkles. This word was made from sheets and wrinkles. The winner of the CBC contest was sheetfaced. (Word invented November, 1999)

My son is having trouble with Algebra, so, in the short run I will try to help him. In the long run I will get him a tutor. (run refers to an amount of time)

We have developed a smart bomb drug to cure the disease. This drug targets a small area, such as a cancer, and doesn’t harm anything else.

It is the Millennium soon, so it is time to load up on extra food and water for your house.

The local elections are where we can be involved in the grassroots politics. This is the base, the common people, the common problems that we all share.

Gesundhalt is when you start to sneeze but then you don’t. Gezundnotquite is another word for the same thing. Adenoidance was the winner of the contest for this condition. The winner used the words adenoid and avoidance to make the new word. (Words invented November, 1999)

In the holiday season, we should dig deep to find some extra money to share with people who are poorer than ourselves. To dig deep is to try hard to do something you want to do.

He has a deep down feeling of happiness in the holiday season.

The police stopped the speeder and said to him, You are in ‘deep trouble’.

That film was deep. It had some important and difficult message in it.

My friend likes to split hairs over everything. He makes us all crazy because he is picky about every little detail of every little thing.

We must grade the trade. This is using rhyming words. The two words, grade and trade, rhyme.

A sticky problem is a difficult problem.

He has a small mind my friend; he thinks he knows a culture if he meets one person from that culture. A synonym for a small mind is a narrow mind.

He is a bit of a red neck, which can include racist kinds of thinking, too.

This kind of person could be called a know it all.

A show off is someone who likes to be the number one and have everyone watch him. He has a trophy bride means he is a rich man married to a much younger, beautiful woman.