Set tongues wagging

Bipasha and Shahid’s dinner together set tongues wagging!

“Set tongues wagging” is an interesting phrase which should be a part of your spoken English repertoire. Let’s take some examples:

1. Bipasha Basu was seen with Shahid Kapoor in a Mumbai restaurant and this set the tongues wagging. Next day, every newspaper was talking about a possible love affair between them.
2. She went to lunch with her boss and this set the tongues wagging in the office. Everyone is not gossiping about how she got her promotion due to her affair with the boss.

Set tongues wagging means something which gets people gossiping about something. Basically when you do something which makes people begin a lot of idle talk, you say it has set the tongues wagging. It is a phrase you can easily come across in Bollywood magazines or page 3 gossip columns. Let’s take some more examples:

1. I had a heated conversation with my boss inside the closed room. However, something set the tongues wagging and by evening, everyone was talking about how I had a big fight with the boss. I really don’t know how did the news come out.
2. Smita’s housing society is really filled with sad people. One day she returned on her colleagues bike and that set the tongues wagging. Within a few days everyone was talking about her affair with some guy with a bike.

The best place to use, “Set tongues wagging” is when you want to refer to something which started a lot of gossip, an action which got people curious and triggered a wave of idle and malicious talk. For example: When the new runner broke all records and gave an unprecedented performance, it set the tongues wagging. Everyone began whispering how it could have been a case of drug induced performance. He came clean in the drug test but still, whispers remain.