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English Idiom: Keep your powder dry
It’s raining heavily today, and just by coincidence, the idiom I have chosen is keep your powder dry.
Lucky me, what a coincidence.
Today’s idiom comes from history.
To use an old gun, the soldier had to put loose gunpowder into it.
However, when gunpowder is wet, it doesn’t explode.
Therefore, soldiers had to keep their (gun)powder dry so they would be able to shoot when they had to.
Back then, the expression had a very literal meaning.
These days, people do not walk around carrying bags of gunpowder, but we still use the idiom.
These days, it means to be ready for any situation.
In business, as in life, we never know when something good or bad will happen.
That’s why we always have to keep an ear to the ground.
As you work today, remember to keep your powder dry so you can react quickly to any situation that arises.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 75.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.