under the hood

It seems that we are losing our grip on phrases deriving from our experiences with riding horses, or driving horse-drawn vehicles.  We no longer know what it means to give a horse free rein so we have started giving things free reign.

 I started to think about phrases coming from our experience with motor vehicles, and there are many of them understandably.  The one that drew my attention is a fairly recent one – to look under the hood, an American expression which has a British English equivalent, to look under the bonnet. This is a figurative extension of what the mechanic does when he lifts the hood or bonnet of a car to investigate what is going wrong. It is used in many contexts. You can look under the hood of a piece of software. A surgeon can even look under the hood of your head to examine your brain. But it is in the world of finance that it seems to be currently popular, and from there it has moved into the language of politicians who wish to appear to be money literate.

 Another driving phrase popular in polliespeak is asleep at the wheel. This is usually applied to the government of the day.  Phrases to do with metaphorical speed are rev it up, go at a hundred miles an hour (not turned into kilometres), put the pedal to the metal, be on cruise control, and be in top gear.

 The opposite is gridlock. 

 When your circumstances change, you need to change gear, and wait for the opportunity to go at full throttle again.