- Beat you like a red-headed step-child
- Fair-haired son
- Don’t give a rat’s ass
- Pee in your cornflakes
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Fun with idioms
At least temporarily, I’ve decided not to avoid idioms any more. In fact, when the opportunity arises, we’ve been having a bit of fun with them at work lately. In the last two days, this has featured the following:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
'pee in you cornflakes'? what kind of idiom is that?
When you think someone has peed in your corn flakes if you actually taste it, it's usually apple juice.
rat's ass is my favorite. It hardly seems like an idiom.
Isn't peeing in someone's cornflakes like raining on their parade, only cruder?
My personal favorite is "What crawled up your butt and died?"
Maybe it is the company I keep.
I think you are confusing idioms with colloquialisms. These here seem to be descriptive remarks, the meanings of which can more or less be guessed at, like the remark "What did your last servant die of?" Idioms, though, are word combinations that elude reason: knock on wood; out of the blue; fall for (someone); a square meal; hard cash; soft soap; sour grapes, etc. In the case of idioms, you either know their meanings or you don't. There's no guesswork here, which is why learning them is such a problem for anyone learning English. Or any language, for that matter, because all languages have their own unique idioms. You are welcome to view my website for further information about this. Thanks, John
Post a Comment