English Idioms 1

[CorBlimeyLimey]

The following URL may help ESL members make more sense of some of the "everyday" idiomatic English phrases.

http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/list.php

Thanks to TheRambler for the lead to this site from the A or An? thread1256-1226895

[Cheers]

 

[Golom]

Just at random ...

Idiom: My heart bleeds
Meaning: If your heart bleeds for someone, you feel genuine sympathy and sadness for them.

In my experience, "My heart bleeds" is usually delivered with a fair bit of sarcasm and really means

"I'm not very sympathetic to your story. Either you are whining or just plain lying."

It's the equivalent of "Tell someone who cares."


[small]No! No! You're not thinking ... you're only being logical.
- Neils Bohr[/small]

 

[r937]

well that's a new resource for me, and a really nice collection

i was a bit disappointed at the first definition i looked up --

Beck and call
Someone who does everything for you,
no matter when you ask, is at your
beck and call.

i was looking for a definition that would explain why there are two words in the phrase

not to derail this thread, but does anyone know what that's called, when there are two similar words in a phrase, which dates back to when there were angles and saxons, or normans, or whatever, when it was common to use a word from each language so as to make it clear what was meant?

r937.com | rudy.ca

 

[TheRambler]

CorBlimeyLimey, believe it or not some of those English idioms may come from other languages (or the other way around, I don't know), the fact is there are almost literal translations in Spanish for:
[ul]
[li]A little bird told me[/li]
[li]As one man[/li]
[li]Bad blood[/li]
[li]Baptism of fire[/li]
[li]Beauty is in the eye of the beholder[/li]
[li]Better late than never[/li]
[li]Break the ice[/li]
[li]Card up your sleeve[/li]
[li]Castles in the air[/li]
[li]Duck to water[/li]
[li]Easier said than done[/li]
[li]Eat like a pig[/li]
[li]Eye for an eye[/li]
[li]Feet on the ground[/li]
[li]Grab the bulls by its horns[/li]
[li]Hit the nail on the head[/li]
[/ul]
and so on, but most of the others sound like Greek to me. Thanks for sharing, understanding idiomatic expressions will be easy as pie now.

 

[TheRambler]

r937, you might like to read Your wish is my illegal command, from The Word Detective.

Could the word you are looking for be macaronic?

Macaronic refers to text spoken or written using a mixture of languages. The term is occasionally used of hybrid words, which are in effect internally macaronic.
...
Macaronic verse is especially common in cultures with widespread bilingualism or language contact, such as Ireland before the middle of the nineteenth century.

 

[r937]

thanks, but my trusty COE (concise oxford dictionary) was quite sufficient in explaining the origins of beck and call

macaronic? isn't that italian?

however, this page says:

Many legal terms, such as indict, jury, and verdict have Anglo-Norman roots because the Normans ran the courts. This split, where words commonly used by the aristocracy have Romantic roots and words frequently used by the Anglo-Saxon commoners have Germanic roots, can be seen in many instances.

i can't think of any examples right off, but it is within the legal context that i think "A and B" always go together, so that everyone, regardless of norman/saxon background, would know what it meant

like cease and desist, except both of these derive from old french


r937.com | rudy.ca

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

r937 ... "Beck and Call" is probably derived from "beckon" (to physically motion to someone to "come here") and the "call" part is pretty obvious.

[Cheers]

 

[chiph]

All hat, no cattle"

Still love this one.


But it requires you to know that Texans wear large hats, tend to brag, and also raise cattle. So someone who wears the hat, but has no cattle, brags a lot but doesn't have anything to back it up with.

Chip H.


____________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please read FAQ222-2244 first

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

The UK equivalent is "All Mouth and Trousers". The "trousers" (pants) inferring that the apparent (ahem) bulge in the front is not caused by genuine testosterone producing organs.

[Cheers]

 

[rosieb]

Another, less subtle female UK equivalent is "All fur and no knickers" ("Fur" referring to fur coat) - all show, no substance.

Rosie
"Don't try to improve one thing by 100%, try to improve 100 things by 1%

 

[CRilliterate]

Rosie,
I have a question about your signature
"Don't try to improve one thing by 100%, try to improve 100 things by 1%"

Doesn't it sound like knowing little bit of everything and nothing in particular? Just wondering...

________________________________________
I am using Windows XP, Crystal Reports 9.0 with SQL Server

 

[r937]

a generalist is someone who knows less and less about more and more until eventually he knows nothing about everything

a specialist is someone who knows more and more about less and less until eventually he knows everything about nothing

;-)

r937.com | rudy.ca

 

[rosieb]

CRilliterate

What's wrong with that, I specialise in knowing a very little about a lot!

The sig comes from my partner's boss - I've always taken it to be the old 80:20 rule, that effort expended increases as you get to perfection - the net effect of improving 100 things I do by 1% is vastly greater than the net effect of doing one thing 100% better.

Rosie
"Don't try to improve one thing by 100%, try to improve 100 things by 1%

 

[SamBones]

Rosie's sig reminds me of something someone once told me. It was someone that had just made a great deal of money. He said, "If you want to make a million dollars, it's easier to make $1 from a million sales, than $1 million dollars from one sale."

That always stuck with me. It seemed to make sense. Although I never did learn what he sold.

I'm working on my second million (I gave up on the first).

 

[TheRambler]

I thought her signature was sort of a diversification strategy designed to reduce the risk of failing, like "never put all your eggs in the same basket". It makes sense to me.

 

[SantaMufasa]

I am reminded of an ancient battle between Iberian Basques and their mortal enemies, the Franks.

The Basque commanders determined that it would be a strategic advantage to battle their foes from only one front, therefore, the Basques holed up on a box canyon to do battle...one way in, one way out of the canyon. The Franks confronted the Basques and the battle raged. The Basques, however, did not count on the Franks coming over the brims of the canyon, descending upon the Basques and wiping them out since the main Frank contingent blocked the Basques' means of escape at the mouth of the canyon.

This event is the origin of the military tactical truth, "Don't put all your Basques in one Exit."

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I can provide you with low-cost, remote Database Administration services: see our website and contact me via www.dasages.com]

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

[groan] ... actually that was an eggcellent yoke Santa.

[Cheers]

 

[rosieb]

Uuuuuh! Maybe this forum needs a "Punmeister of the Week" award, the competition would be fierce.

I think SamBones has it about right, the sig's about trying to improve constantly in small ways, rather than going for a single big hit. I also see it as a philosopy of handling things in small, easily digestible, chunks.

Rosie
"Don't try to improve one thing by 100%, try to improve 100 things by 1%

 

[Olaf Doschke]

I even spread this philosophy of Rosie some days ago. I think it's a golden rule and was impressed by it.

And it does not exclude expertise. If you are an expert in a field, you surely are able to teach 100 beginners with the goal to improve everyone by 1% than take one beginner and take him to your level. Even, if it's exaggerated to set yourself to 100%.

Smaller improvements are easier achieved and the total profit is higher. I can imagine a contradicting example: Take a million dollar, split it by a million people and each one may afford a coffe-to-go and that's it, I bet you wouldn't even get a million thank-you's. You could do much more with that amount of money in the long term by founding a company, employing people and do something useful. But that's due to the nature of money: You can't give it away and keep it at the same time. The best things in life don't have that nature of money ;-).

Well, back to the topic: Astonishingly almost all the idioms TheRambler listed can also be translated into german and remain their meaning:

[ul]
[li]A little bird told me = ein kleiner Vogel hat es mir gezwitschert[/li]
[li]As one man = wie ein Mann[/li]
[li]Bad blood = böses Blut[/li]
[li]Baptism of fire = Feuertaufe[/li]
[li]Beauty is in the eye of the beholder = Schönheit liegt im Auge des Betrachters[/li]
[li]Better late than never = besser spät als nie[/li]
[li]Break the ice = das Eis brechen[/li]
[li]Card up your sleeve - no exact match found, would perhaps best fit to:[/li]
[li] Ein As im Ärmel haben = To have an ace up your sleeve?[/li]
[li]Castles in the air = Luftschlösser[/li]
[li]Duck to water - no match found, what does that mean?[/li]
[li]Easier said than done = leichter gesagt als getan[/li]
[li]Eat like a pig = essen wie ein Schwein[/li]
[li]Eye for an eye = Auge um Auge - I think it's from the bible.[/li]
[li]Feet on the ground = mit den Beinen auf festem Boden stehen, or perhaps:[/li]
[li]Auf dem Teppich geblieben = Remained on the carpet?[/li]
[li]Grab the bulls by its horns = den Bullen bei den Hörnern packen[/li]
[li]Hit the nail on the head = den Nagel auf den Kopf treffen[/li]
[/ul]

Of course the word order does not match exactly.

Then there are is an idiom, which I like better in german:
[ul]
[li]Das ist nicht mein Bier = That's not my beer. Instead of: That's not my cup of tea.[/li]
[/ul]

Bye, Olaf.

 

[TheRambler]

> actually that was an eggcellent yoke Santa.
sort of a pun and implied chiasmus at the same time, great!

OlafDoschke,
I always thought idioms should not be translated literally because they would not make sense as their meaning is figurative, but as you have noticed also, some idioms seem to be universal. Sometimes the same idiom exists in many languages but with a little regional variation, like in your tea/beer example; one I can think of right now is
[ul]
[li]As cool as a cucumber[/li]
[/ul]
but we say
[ul]
[li]As cool as a lettuce[/li]
[/ul]
anyway, the intended meaning is the same.

"Duck to water" is like saying "in his natural environment", for example: Santa is to puns like duck to water.