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Reader question: Please explain this sentence, particularly “grapevine”: Soon, people learned – through the office grapevine – that Jason was leaving. My comments: Here, office grapevine is a metaphor. It refers to the rumor mill. Obviously there are no real grapevines involved, not as if the office cubicles were separated by thick grapevines through which colleagues talk to each other, that is, through leafy and wiry vines. Not a bad idea, actually if it would be at all possible to plant the crawly vines in the modern office. It would provide some needed green in the very least. Actually, though, people heard about Jason’s leaving more likely at the water cooler, where employees get drinking water and have a quick word with each other if they meet. Sometimes, of course, people linger round the water cooler and talk a little longer than perhaps they should. Or it might be the water boiler, as most employees in China prefer hot water, especially in the old days. Or it might be the coffee machine, as auto coffee makers are increasingly installed in the modern open-space office. Anyways, grapevine is a metaphor and it originally refers to, surprise, the telephone line. This explanation, from English-for-students.com: In the early days of U.S. telegraphy, companies rushed to put up telegraph poles, some made none too well and some actually using trees rather than poles. To some, the tangled wires resembled the wild vines found in California, hence a Grapevine. During the U.S. Civil War the telegraph was used extensively, but the messages were sometime unreliable, hence the association of rumour on the grapevine. The phrase first appeared in print in 1852. | 
