what does the phrase "take sb to the woodshed" mean in the following context?

Punishment. You take somebody to the woodshed so you can beat them in private. That's what it means. In fact, the punishment is verbal.

P.S. Avoid using sb and st for somebody and something. They just aren't universally understood, inspite of being common in translation dictionaries.

what does sb mean in the context of this threads title?
[quote]what does the phrase "take sb to the woodshed" mean in the following context?[/quote]

I dont think i have ever seen that before and I've been speaking english all my life.

Sb means 'somebody'. If you see st, it's 'something'. They're fairly common in English/otherlanguage dictionaries. I doubt any of us will ever see them elsewhere.

I'm sure dictionary is a poor choice for what amounts to a bilingual thesaurus, but that's what they always say on the cover.

By the way, when the author says "take the big four to the woodshed," the expression "big four" refers to the four highest ranking members of Mr. Reagan's white house staff.

They are exceedingly common in lots of ESL/EFL literature including some of the top name dictionaries, Roger. It's you folk who have to get up to speed.

No, it is not up to us. Well, maybe it is, if the students have some reason to believe they are asking help of professional ESL instructors. In the absence of such, a certain number of questions surely go unanswered. Regretable I suppose, but if you are going to blame someone, you have to blame all the unknown people who did not answer.

S'okay. I didn't think you were serious anyway.

Of course it is, Roger. Just the same as getting oneself up to speed on grammar issues or language usage, IF one wants to answer questions that are pertinent to ESL/EFLs.

When a person sees sb/sth/st in Collins, Cambridge, Longman, ..., it's completely natural to assume that most people are familiar with those, pretty minor really, abbreviations.

Instead of trying to change a natural behavior from students, it seems to make more sense to correct an unnatural one present in their teachers.