Cartoon : The Automotive Bias of Language

Used with kind permission by Andy Singer. For more of his cartoons, visit: http://www.andysinger.com/index.html

- To live life in the fast lane – To live an exciting, busy way of life due to personal success and wealth. This idiomatic expression is taken from the fast lane (la voie de dépassement) of a highway which is the outer lane used by the vehicles traveling fastest.

- To be driven – If you are driven, you try very hard to achieve things and be successful. The adjective is derived from the past participle form of ‘to drive.’

- To be in the driver’s seat – If someone controls a situation, we say that he or she is in the driver’s seat.

- Pedestrian – Of course you know the word to be someone who is walking in town instead of driving. As an adjective it means ordinary, undistinguished and boring.