Drive something into the ground

[Mad_Hatter]

Hello everybody I think this is my first post here. I'm having a hard time with this idiom: drive something into the ground. I've heard it used during an episode of an American web series. The full sentence is: "you inherited this fine financial institution, and then drove it into the ground".
Apparently the meaning of it should be like "you destroyed it/ruined it", but when I looked it up in the dictionary, I found out another meaning: to talk too much about something. Which one is correct?

thank you!

 

[probus]

To drive something into the ground is to destroy it, usually by operating it incorrectly or irresponsibly, for example by demanding too much of it. I suspect the expression was born in the world of aviation, but nowadays you can drive anything into the ground including a bank or a giant dairy corporation like Parmalat.

 

[lingokid]

Alas, driving something into the ground also means "firmly positioning something into the ground", like a pole or post (for fences); it's rather technical in some ways

 

[BobK]

But in that case the verb is prepositional. 'I'm driving the stake?'/'Where?'/'Into the ground.' ('I'm driving the car.'/'Where?'... would lead to the expectation of some place. 'Into the ground' would be a joke.)

(I can't believe I even said that! - what you hear is no different. ;-))

b

 

[lingokid]

But in that case the verb is prepositional. 'I'm driving the stake?'/'Where?'/'Into the ground.' ('I'm driving the car.'/'Where?'... would lead to the expectation of some place. 'Into the ground' would be a joke.)

(I can't believe I even said that! - what you hear is no different. ;-))

b

In my honest opinion, I thought that was understood!!

 

[Vidor]

not a teacher

both are correct

 

[Route21]

Re: not a teacher

both are correct

I've just noticed that Vidor has been able to change the thread title (via the "go advanced" editing facility).

Maybe, in cases where a moderator feels strongly enough that the title doesn't clearly reflect the actual question, they have a vehicle for changing it.

I notice that when the system is looking for similar, previous posts, it looks for threads with similar words in their URL and that the URL for a thread only picks up key words from the title. Changing the title would therefore help the system find similar posts.

Regards
R21

PS Maybe the ability to change the title should only be available to mods!

PPS Looks like it only changes the title of the post, not the thread title!