Exploring factories, mills, and idiomatic expressions in everyday language

Introduction to factories

A factory is a building or group of buildings where goods are manufactured, generally in an automated or semi¬automated way.
Mrs. Bassman showed her year three class a video about a pencil factory that traced the process from cutting down the trees to writing with the finished product!
There must have been a problem at the air conditioner factory, because my air conditioner puts out hot air instead of cold. I want a refund!

Factory floor expression

When you want to talk about regular workers, and not management, in any workplace, you can use the expression on the factory floor. You might also hear factory as a derogatory term for any place or organization that produces a uniform product without care for quality.
Boris knew that his new proposal would be popular with management, since it would save millions of dollars per year, but he wasn't sure how it would be received on the factory floor.

Online universities skepticism

Some people are very wary of online universities, thinking of them as diploma factories. A degree from a "bricks and mortar" university is usually seen as superior.
Mills are buildings with machinery to grind grain into flour or meal. Mill can also refer to the machine which does the grinding. Watermills use the power of moving water to drive the machinery in a mill, windmills use wind power for the same purpose, and a sawmill is a workplace in which logs are sawn into boards.

Origin of the surname Miller

Not many people know it, but the surname Miller comes from the fact that men who operated mills grinding grain were known as "millers."
One of the highlights of the field trip was when the children got to go inside a working windmill, in which the power of the wind was helping to grind corn. Later, they ate cornbread prepared from the ground corn.
There are several colorful idioms that use the word mill. One is run of the mill, an expression that means common, everyday, or otherwise unremarkable. Another is grist for the mill, which means something useful or necessary.

Film disappointment

I had high hopes for the film we went to see last night, but it turned out to be completely run of the mill, with a plot that I've seen a hundred times before.
It may seem silly, but while I'm doing research for this book, I'm eager to get every bit of information I can. No matter how trivial it may seem, everything is more grist for the mill.