Dead, drunk or in love?

Here's the idiom game that I pulled out for last night's English Club.

1. Jot down as many English idioms/euphemisms for describing death, drunkenness, and being in love (or getting married) as you can come up with.

2. Scramble up your lists.

3. Write them on a white board.

4. Have participants try to guess which of the three categories each idiom fits in.

5. Depending on time and setting I sometime have students come up with a list of their own (my American students at Eureka College knew way too many for getting drunk) or a list of local language equivalents.

Examples: bought the farm, tipsy, on cloud nine, over the moon, worshipping at the foot of the porcelain god, three sheets to the wind, toasted, kicked the bucket, pushing up daisies, spending the night with Captain Jack, shot by Cupid's arrow, head over heels, visiting St. Peter, six feet under, worm food.

I think I first used this game when teaching Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" which really ties in nicely.

Other fun idiom categories include crazy, pregnant or peeing. But be careful of your audience. I'm sure I've offended plenty of people by not considering cultural sensitivity.