There was a funny article on the BBC news a couple of weeks ago about the world hot dog-eating champion. He managed to eat 68 hot dogs. I think the most I could ever manage would be three bit I’m sure it would make me feel really sick!
There is an interesting expression in the fourth paragraph:
The first such hot dog eating contest was held in 1916, when the winner put away only 13 frankfurters.
‘Put away’ usually means to store something (Eg. I put away my pens in the drawer) but in this article it means to eat. Normally when we use ‘put away’ to mean ‘eat’ it is when someone eats a lot of food very fast. It’s quite a common informal phrasal verb.
The other interesting expression comes in the next paragraph:
The two men have gone gut-to-gut for almost a decade at the annual competition,
When two people are competing with each other, we often say they are going ‘head-to-head’ I think in this article the author has used ‘gut-to-gut’ because the competitors are using their ‘guts’ (stomachs) to compete.
Here are some other ‘-to-‘ expressions:
The meeting was held face-to-face.
(The participants were in the in the same room as each other.)
They danced cheek-to-cheek.
(They did a romantic dance with their faces close to each other.)
He and his father don’t see eye-to-eye on that matter.
(He doesn’t agree with his father on that matter.)
How many hot dogs could you eat? I think the most I could ever manage would be three bit I’m sure it would make me feel really sick!