So to speak

Then Tom girded up his loins, so to speak, and went to work to “get his verses.”

This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak—the sea entering into the life of most men, and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way of amusement, of travel, or of bread-winning.

He took the great, round world in his hand, so to speak, familiarly, contemptuously, and it seemed no larger than the seed of a Maraschino cherry in a table d’hôte grape fruit.

I don't believe Lecter's even seen a woman in eight years. And oh, are you ever his taste. So to speak.

For Firefighter Joseph Ceravolo, President Obama turned up the heat, so to speak, even before he sat down to an early lunch on Thursday.

Every guest is appalled and fantastically humourless about the experience, even at this distance. You cannot help but wonder at cultural divides and how differently the British might have approached – or at least recalled – such events, at least in the early days. For us, surely, it would be a story for the ages. You could dine out on it for ever, so to speak.