An article published
on 11 September 2016 appeared in the Lifestyle section of The Mirror with the headline: Travel insiders: Get your skates on for
a great value winter sports holiday. What
does ‘get your skates on’ mean?
Oxford Dictionaries
defines a travel insider as ‘a person within a group or organization,
especially someone privy to information unavailable to others.’ So for people
who are inside the group of regular travellers, this article is for you.
The Free Dictionary
defines the idiom ‘get your skates on!’ as ‘something that you say in order to
tell someone to hurry (usually an order).’ Note the exclamation mark that
expresses a demand, an order, surprise, or shock. Get your skates on is a
British and Australian informal expression that is indeed an order to hurry –
whether you are actually going skating or not.
The article’s
sub-heading is ‘if you want to whizz about in the white stuff this season, now
is the time to nail down an early booking.’ The expression ‘to nail down’ means
‘to make something certain or final’ according to the Free Dictionary. The first
sentence of the article tells readers to ‘Get your skates on if you’re after a
winter sports holiday that won’t freeze your bank account.’ And there’s another
idiom (that’s four so far !). A frozen bank account, according to
Investopedia, is an account in which no withdrawals or purchases can be made –
usually because the account holder has overspent or over-committed their funds.
Summer is over, and
autumn is beginning, so winter is a while away. With the summer holidays over,
the article is already alerting readers to winter holiday specials. The article
states that skiing and snowboarding trips are not cheap, but they can be made
more affordable – and it provides ways to do this. ‘Destination is key’ it says
when looking for ‘the value end of the market’ – loyal counts and ‘early
booking deals’ do too. The article provides the names of travel agencies
offering early deals, and also provides tips to save money.
The Scorecard for The Mirror article is 100% - not only is
the article early in announcing early deals for winter holidays, but the
article stresses the need to hurry in order to ‘make something certain or
final.’ It also mentions the idiom ‘get your skates on’ early in the article.
The article doesn’t
mention skating holidays, nor skating activities, but it doesn’t need to,
because the phrase is not necessarily related to skating. If you’re told to ‘get
your skates on and finish your chores!’ (as an order, with an exclamation mark)
it means to hurry up and get your work done! In fact, more often it has nothing
to do with skating – just the need to hurry, because (assumingly) ice skating,
or even roller skating, are fasting than walking!
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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