第一个是：stake out a claim。Stake out在这里的意思是“立桩标出地界”，而这儿的claim是名词，它的意思是“土地所有权”。
淘金者抵达目的地后做的第一件事就是尽可能在金块发现地附近占有一片土地。他们的具体做法是在自己选中的土地的四角敲进木桩，说明这里是某人的地界，然后向政府管理土地的部门递交一份claim，也就是申请这块土地所有权的文书。这就是stake out a claim。
久而久之，stake out a claim被用来表示更广泛的意思了，可以引申为“坚持要求得到某物”。
例句-1：Boy, this apple pie is great! And I'm still hungry -- I think there's a piece left in the kitchen. I'll stake out a claim for it, if you guys don't mind。
哇，这苹果派真好吃！我还没吃够呢，你们要不介意的话，厨房里剩下的那块就归我了！
美国习惯用语：大大小小都归我
例句-2：Okay, Sally, you get mother's Chinese tea set. But I want to stake out a claim to those old dishes from France: I've always loved them and they fit in fine with the dishes I have now。
第二个习惯用语是strike it rich。当年千千万万个淘金者中确实有那么几个幸运儿果真找到了金子成为百万富翁。这时其他来探寻金矿的人就会说他们是：strike it rich。 Strike it rich原意是“挖到金矿发大财了”，现在引申为“突然发大财”。
例句-3：Did you hear about Jim? -- What a lucky guy! He bought a lottery ticket last week. You know the odds of winning -- millions to one against you. But he struck it rich -- he won ten million dollars!
例句-4：Dr. Jonas Salk worked years to find a way to protect children from the dread disease of polio. And 40 years ago he struck it rich: he found a vaccine that has almost wiped out this killer。