Morning Edition

Yahoo touched off a debate about the effectiveness of telecommuting when it told employees last week that they may no longer work from home. The policy change was made, according to the company's internal email, to enhance workplace collaboration.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who happens to be a new mother, drew fierce criticism from those who say she should embrace, rather than reject, flexible work arrangements.

What exactly is lost and what's gained when people work from home?

If you've ever shot the breeze, had a heart-to-heart or bent somebody's ear — in fact, if you've ever talked at all — odds are you've used an idiom. These sometimes bizarre phrases are a staple of conversation, and more than 10,000 of them are collected in the latest edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, which came out this week.

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renée Montagne. Bald eagles are the definition of cool, but apparently they spook easily. So when Sequoia, a bald eagle at the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo, got caught in a strong wind while spreading her wings at a local park, she took off to other suburbs. The San Jose Mercury News reports it took three days for the bald eagle's handlers to track her down. And then she was treated with a feast of mouse and quail. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.