bang the books
v.— «When I went to the field, I saw things like voucher fraud and banging the books—which means time and attendance fraud—and some of us were bitterly disappointed about that. But we rationalized that we were fighting a bigger enemy and every [organization] has fraud.» —“A Q&A with Fred Whitehurst, the first FBI whistleblower to go public” by Frederic Whitehurst City Pages (Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.) Oct. 6, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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If you speak a second or third language, you may remember the first time you dreamed in that new tongue. But does this milestone mean you’re actually fluent? And a couple’s dispute over the word regret: Say you wish you’d been able...