Sam is toying with the idea of quitting his job.

My comments:

A toy is a plaything, something for babies, boys and girls and, yes, some adults who have yet to outgrow these things to play with. Toy as a verb suggests you are playing and have fun.

And playing is usually considered leisurely. In other words, not serious.

For Sam to be toying with the idea of quitting his job, hence, is for him to think briefly about quitting the job. He’s not serious. For the time being, he’s on the job and he may still be on the job next week, month, or year.

He’s just given quitting his job some thoughts, briefly talked about it with friends perhaps, but he is not very serious about it.

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點(diǎn)，與本網(wǎng)立場(chǎng)無關(guān)。歡迎大家討論學(xué)術(shù)問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發(fā)布一切違反國(guó)家現(xiàn)行法律法規(guī)的內(nèi)容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.