Rowing and canoeing

Most rowing words stay on the water, but one has gone ashore. Sich in die Riemen legen is literally to lay oneself into the oars, and in ordinary German it means to put one’s back into it: wir müssen uns jetzt in die Riemen legen is said about a deadline, a harvest or an election campaign, and nobody who says it is thinking of a boat. The picture behind it is the drive of a sweep oar, where the rower hangs the whole weight of the body on the handle. Two details keep the phrase German rather than a calque. The oars are plural even when one person speaks only about herself, and the oar is der Riemen, the rowers’ word for a sweep oar, rather than the everyday das Ruder. The register is informal without being slangy, so it fits a team meeting as comfortably as a boathouse.