Answer:

1. “Hit the hay.”

“Sorry, guys, I have to hit the hay now!”

At first, it seems like the person saying this really wants to punch some hay. But it really just means that they’re really tired and want to go to sleep.

2. “Up in the air”

“Hey, did you ever figure out those plans?”

“No, they’re still up in the air for now. We’ll figure everything out later.”

Can plans actually be floating high in the sky? Theoretically, they could--if you wrote them down and threw them up! But this idiom really means that the situation being planned is still undecided, and that everything is still uncertain/unsure.

3. “Stabbed in the back”

“I don’t want to be Hayley’s friend anymore, she stabbed me in the back!”

Literally stabbing someone in the back could bring someone to jail! That’s definitely not what this idiom means.

Being stabbed in the back means that you’ve been betrayed by someone who you thought you could trust.

4. “Takes two to tango”

“David isn’t the only guilty one here! After all, it takes two to tango.”

It literally does take two to tango--you can’t dance the tango unless you have a partner. But this idiom means that if there’s a suspicious situation, then there’s more than one culprit. They couldn’t have done it by themselves.

5. “Kill two birds with one stone.”

“Why not go to the post office on your way to the mall and kill two birds with one stone?”

Don’t worry, we’re not actually killing any birds here! When you kill two birds with one stone, a single action knocks out two tasks or responsibilities--accomplish two different things at the same time. (In this case, posting a letter and doing some shopping in one trip.)

Explanation:

These phrases are called “idioms”. Idioms are phrases (groups of words) that have a hidden meaning which isn't clear when reading the words literally. They might seem baffling or random to you, but most idioms were born hundreds of years ago, and have slowly become part of everyday English speech.