"get ground up", "to keep someone on someone's toes". Could you explain what does it mean, please!
Context:

I sure felt I was being watched over as a kid, and I'm nobody special. When you think of all the ways a kid can get ground up, there's no way so many could survive into adulthood without some unseen help."

"What about the ones that do get ground up?"

"That's necessary to keep the other parents on their toes."

Quastions:

1. What does "get ground up" mean? Does it mean to die?
2. And I don't understand phrase "to keep the other parents on their toes". Is it an idiom. What does it mean?

Question

"get ground up",  "to keep someone on someone's toes". Could you explain what does it mean, please!
Context:

I sure felt I was being watched over as a kid, and I'm nobody special. When you think of all the ways a kid can get ground up, there's no way so many could survive into adulthood without some unseen help."

"What about the ones that do get ground up?"

"That's necessary to keep the other parents on their toes."

Quastions:

1. What does "get ground up" mean? Does it mean to die?
2. And I don't understand phrase "to keep the other parents on their toes". Is it an idiom. What does it mean?

Answer

To 'ground up' in this context would mean how kids get annoyed, wound up, etc; and so the sentence is on about how there's so many things that can happen that can bother, upset or get the child into trouble, that it's difficult for them to survive childhood and grow up into an adult.

'To keep someone on their toes' means to keep them busy.

Answer

I'm not sure about "ground up" based on the context given. I think it means "go through hard times and come out as a broken man" or something (emotionally, not physically). But I've never heard this expression before. Maybe an American person could answer this?

To "keep someone on their toes" means to keep them guessing; to keep them alert; so that they cannot become complacent.

Answers · 4

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