Got it covered
cover all the bases means to be prepared for every contingency
The thorough investigation covered all the bases.
This phrase is a reference to a baseball player covering a base by standing close to it, ensuring a runner can not reach it safely.
Surprised or incorrect
caught off base means caught unprepared
The sudden storm during the hike caught him off base.
way off base means completely incorrect
The weather forecast was way off base.
This phrase is a reference to the situation of a baseball runner being away from a base and taking a risk of being put out.
Movin' on up
big leagues means at the highest level
You’re in the big leagues now.
This phrase is a reference to major league baseball where the career goal of the athlete is to move from the minors to the majors.
Hitting perfection
batting a thousand means to achieve success at each attempt
He’s batting a thousand so far in the new job.
This phrase comes from the practice of reckoning the batting average of a hitter in thousandths. It would mean that the hitter reached first base every time he was up to bat.
Let's hit this one out of the park!
ballpark means general vicinity
Let’s get in the ballpark, then worry about the fine details.
a ballpark figure means an educated guess
Could you at least give me a ballpark figure for the project?
in the right ballpark means within an acceptable range
His answer wasn’t even in the right ballpark.
to hit one out of the ballpark means to produce a spectacular achievement
They really hit one out of the ballpark with this event!
Take Me Out to the Ballgame
Our language has many idioms that have come from the sport of baseball. For the next couple of weeks I will investigate some of them.
But for something not related to grammar, I’ll start with the history of the song whose chorus is sung during the seventh inning stretch.
In 1908, Jack Norworth spent fifteen minutes writing the lyrics on some scrap paper during a train ride and before the year was over, a hit song was born.
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,
I don’t care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don’t win it’s a shame.
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
At the old ball game.
For the complete lyrics and more details, visit the Baseball Almanac.
Why is W double U not double V?
English uses the Latin alphabet of the Romans. However, this had no letter suitable for representing the phoneme /w/ which was used in Old English, though phonetically the sound represented by /v/ was quite close. In the 7th century scribes wrote uu for /w/; later they used the runic symbols known as wynn. European scribes had continued to write uu, and this usage returned to England with the Norman Conquest in 1066. Early printers sometimes used vv for lack of a w in their type. The name double-u recalls the former identity of u and v, which is also evident in a number of cognate words (flour/flower, guard/ward, suede/Swede, etc.). (Oxford Companion to the English Language)
From http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutenglish/doubleu
A stitch in time saves nine
This phrase means that it is better to not put things off until later. In this case, if you mend a small tear you will need fewer stitches than if you wait until it is a larger tear.
stitch, stitches, stitched and stitching contain two of the letter t (not spelled stiches)
Do you mean insect study or word origin?
entomology means the scientific study of insects
etymology means the origin of a word
To help tide him over another week
He asked for extra money to tide him over until payday.
It is tide, not tie. The swelling tide will carry you over an obstacle.