...idiom the best8/25/13 A - Z idioms list learning English idioms Learn English - Basic English lessons Easy learning English free Home All Lessons Exercises Forum Music English books Register Login Contact us English Chat Pictures Please like our Facebook page Lessons and exercises Basic lessons English basics level 1 English basics level 2 English level 3 English level 4 English Grammar Business lessons Exercises Exercises basics Exercise level 1 Exercise level 2 Tw eet 0 Share Like 1 0 StumbleUpon Large list of A - Z English idioms What will I learn from the English lesson A - Z List of English idioms? This lesson is following on from small list on English idioms, again you will be able to use the list below to learn any idioms that you read about or hear about you don't understand. List of Idioms A - Z A Idioms A big cheese- an important or a powerful person in a group or family A bird’s eye view- a view from a very high place which allows you to see a large area A bone of contention- something that people argue for a long time A cock and a bull story- a story or an explanation which is obviously not true. At the crack of the dawn- very early in morning A cuckoo in the nest- someone in a group of people but not liked by them. A litmus test- a method which clearly proves something As the crow flies- measuring distance between two places in a straight line. A dead letter- an...
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...Dictionary of English Idioms & Idiomatic Expressions Dictionary of English Idioms & Idiomatic Expressions .......................................... 1 ~ A ~ ..................................................................................................................... 1 ~ B ~ ..................................................................................................................... 3 ~ C ~ .................................................................................................................... 8 ~ D ~ .................................................................................................................. 11 ~ E ~ ................................................................................................................... 14 ~ F ~ ................................................................................................................... 15 ~ G ~ .................................................................................................................. 17 ~ H ~ .................................................................................................................. 19 ~ I ~ .................................................................................................................... 22 ~ J ~ ................................................................................................................... 24 ~ K ~ ...............................................................................................
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...Idiomatic Expressions Idiomatic expressions can be problems for non-native speakers because the meaning of the phrase is not literally what the words mean. Also known as "colloquialisms," the only true way to learn them is one by one. A poor man's _____: Something or someone not as good as others is "a poor man's version. A writer who uses exotic locations but is not very convincing would be a poor man's Ernest Hemmingway. About-face : One who changes his or her mind completely is said to have done an aboutface. Above board : If things are carried out legally and properly, they are said to be done "above board." Achilles' heel : A person's weak spot is his or her Achilles' heel, so-named because of the Greek hero Achilles, who was invulnerable everywhere on his body except his heels. Acid test : Proves whether something is good and effective or not. Across the board : Something that applies to everybody applies across the board. Albatross around your neck : An albatross around the neck refers to a problem resulting from a past action that continues to keep one from being successful. Alter ego : A very close and intimate friend, from the Latin phrase that literally means "'other self." An old flame : A person with whom one once had an emotional, usually passionate, relationship—a person still looked on with fondness and affection. Apple of your eye : Something or someone very special to you. Costs an arm and a leg : Something very expensive. As the crow flies...
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...MAKING HEADWAY Phrasal Verbs and Idioms Graham Workman Oxford University Press Making Headway Upper-Intermediate Phrasal Verbs and Idioms Graham Workman Oxford University Press Oxford University Press Great Clarendon Street. Oxford osz Acknowledgements ~ D P Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Bombay Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan OXFORD Illustrations by Kevin Baverstock Caroline Church David Murray Nigel Paige Bill Piggins Location photography by Rob Judges The publishers would like to thank the following for their permission to reproduce photographs: Barnaby's Picture Library Channel 4 News Format Partners Photo Library Impact Photos Ltd Network Photographers The Telegraph Colour Library Ltd and OXFORD ENGLISH are trade marks of Oxford University Press O Oxford University Press 1993 ISBN 0 19 435509 8 First published 199 3 Third impression 1996 No unauthorized photocopying All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system. or transmitted. in any form or by any means. electronic. mechanical. photocopying. recording, or otherwise. without the prior written permission of Oxford University Press. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not. by way of trade or otherwise, be...
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...7 Recommendations for Writing Clearly in Multilanguage Business Environments Purpose: To Explain the seven recommendations for writing clearly in Multilanguage business environment and why they are important to have successful business communications. Introduction: I. In order to have successful business communications with business people from another culture, you must follow seven recommendations for writing clearly in Multilanguage business environments. II. The Seven Recommendations 1. Language 2. Format Details 3. Things to avoid Body: 1. Language a) Use simple, clear language * Use words that don’t have multiple meanings * For example, the word high has 20 meanings; the word expensive has only one meaning b) Be brief * Use simple sentences & short paragraphs * Break information into smaller chunks that are easy for the reader to grasp and translate c) Use transitional elements * Use transitional words and phrases * Precede related points with expressions 2. Format Details a) Address International correspondence properly * Different countries use different address elements & salutations * Discuss different address elements b) Cite dates & numbers carefully * The Canadian Standards Association has adopted the international standards of year-month-day for dates ( 2010-12-05) * Also many Canadian businesses follow U.S & British format; U.S (December5, 2010)...
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...Time is money – understanding US business culture The US, the world’s third largest country both in size and population, is a multicultural mosaic of 300 million people of mixed race and heritage. Yet, despite this ethnic and cultural diversity the US still exhibits a distinct business culture. If you are planning business ventures in the US, a basic understanding of this business culture is essential to your success. Here are some insights that help you avoid common mistakes. Basic concepts An important aspect of US culture is the American Dream: the widespread belief that every individual can succeed and prosper financially by working hard. This idea contributes to a strong work ethic. In addition to a strong work ethic American business culture is also characterized by a heavy emphasis on individual initiative and achievement. Personal competence, professionalism and accountability for individual performance are highly valued Another striking character trait of US business culture is its well-known informality. Thus, titles are seldom used in business environments and most US business partners will offer to use first names almost immediately. Although this casual style can be misleading for people from other cultures. Communication style In their business communication Americans use a very direct style. The primary purpose of communication is to exchange information, facts, and opinions. Typical phrases are “let’s get to the point” and “what’s the bottom line”. If silent...
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...FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE VERSUS LITERAL LANGUAGE STRAYER UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR CARLA THOMPSON PHI 210 WEEK 3 ASSIGNMENT TWO 10/25/2012 DEFINE THE MEANING AND FUNCTION OF EACH TERM Idiom is a set expression of two or more words that means something other than the literal meanings of its individual words. The meaning of idiom conveys is non-compositional. It implies that you cannot understand the meaning of the whole phrase putting the meaning of each word together. If you look at the individual words, it may not even make sense grammatically. Idiomatic expressions are integral units. It literally means that idioms possess indivisible completeness, so all the components are bound within one idiom ( [ (Nordquist, 2012) ]. Analogy in rhetoric is reasoning or explaining from parallel cases. Analogy, in biology functions as superficial resemblance of structures that have different origins. It is interesting to note the extensive use of analogy in the scientific works of Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway, two contemporary women philosophers of the seventeenth century, who did not personally know each other as vitalists, they both perceived such infinite echoes in the world ( [ (Nordquist, 2012) ]. Metaphor is a figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between two unlike things that actually have something in common. A metaphor expresses the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar. “Metaphor the energy charge that leaps between images revealing their connections”...
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...Running head: Vietnamese and English idioms related to the word “Dog”: Vietnamese and English idioms related to the word “Dog”: A contrastive Analysis Student: Nguyen Le Hoang Yen Class: 4A08 Ho Chi Minh City University of Pedagogy Contrastive Analysis Instructor: Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Vu December 31, 2011 Abstract One problem which makes a lot of people have difficulty in communicating with one another is to use idiomatic expressions. As far as you know, idiomatic expressions make English become colorful and full of vitality, so they are often used very much in the native speakers’ speech and in the writing such as news, songs, movies, etc. on the television. However, these idioms are sometimes are not easy to understand and study their meanings, so I decide to study them by studying Vietnamese and English idioms containing the word ‘dog’ and one another reason for this topic to study is that I really like lovely dogs. In my studying this topic, there are two parts such as theoretical background and Vietnamese and English idioms related to the word ‘dog’ which is the main part of my topic. Theoretical background Idioms versus proverbs Idioms and proverbs are frequently used in the daily speech, so we can not find the differences between them clearly. However, we can distinguish idioms and proverbs by basing on some criteria. Idioms * It is a fixed group of words. e.g. the idiom ‘chó chui gầm chạn’ has the same meaning of the word ‘hèn hạ’ (disgraced)....
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...What is Jazz? Some people will tell you that jazz is a style of music that originated from African-Americans here in America and was adopted by white people over the years. Other people will tell you that jazz is the heart and soul of Blues music and a spinoff of Ragtime and a way of loosely expressing yourself through music. Both of these interpretations are correct, but by dictionary definition, jazz is music originating from New Orleans around the beginning of the 20th century and subsequently developing through the various increasingly complex styles, generally marked by intricate, propulsive rhythms, polyphonic ensemble playing, improvisatory, virtuosic solos, melodic freedom, and a harmonic idiom ranging from simple diatonicism through chromaticism to atonality. Jazz music is all of this and yet so much more. In order to play jazz, you have to take something and tweak it to make it your own. The biggest difference between jazz piano and regular classic piano is simply the style in which you play it. With classic piano, you stick to the rhythms and notes that are written on the pages. The music goes almost perfectly with the score and there is no room for relaxation between notes. With jazz piano however, you move with the music. Within the rhythms, you get to swing to your own style. Jazz piano is much more lose and free. Also with jazz, a lot of the times, you improvise the music meaning that it’s not written down and the player comes up with the notes and...
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...Contents The Blues – Traditions and Inspirations Origin 2 Musical Format Development Classification Influence References Origin Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States around the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll is characterized by specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues chord progression is the most common. The blue notes that, for expressive purposes are sung or played flattened or gradually bent (minor 3rd to major 3rd) in relation to the pitch of the major scale, are also an important part of the sound. The origin of the term of was most likely derived from mysticism involving blue indigo, which was used by many West African cultures in death and mourning ceremonies where all the mourner's garments would have been dyed blue to indicate suffering. Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and rural blacks into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. The musical forms and styles that are now considered the "blues" as well as modern "country music" arose in the same regions during the 19th century in the southern United States. Recorded...
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...history of rock and roll is long and intricate drawing its roots from early American R&B, among other places. While most of the true innovators of rock music have been widely overlooked, white musicians have been profiting greatly off of the innovations made in music by black recording artists, specifically in the arena of rock and roll. It is widely accepted that rock music has its roots in the american blues. The history of the blues dates all the way back to slave plantations. This genre comes specifically from African-American folk music. Julio Finn the author of The Bluesman stated that: [White blues performers] can never be bluespeople...because the blues is not something they live but something they do- which makes all the difference in the world. What distinguishes the bluesperson from the bluesperformer is the cultural-racial make-up, which can only be inherited by a descendent of an ex-American slave. (qtd in Adelt 1) Whether this is true or not is a matter of opinion. What is intriguing about this statement though is the fact that virtually all blues music was originally composed...
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...A hot potato | A penny for your thoughts | Actions speak louder than words | Add insult to injury | An arm and a leg | At the drop of a hat | Back to the drawing board | Ball is in your court | Barking up the wrong tree | Be glad to see the back of | Beat around the bush | Best of both worlds | Best thing since sliced bread | Bite off more than you can chew | Blessing in disguise | Burn the midnight oil | Can't judge a book by its cover | Caught between two stools | Costs an arm and a leg | Cross that bridge when you come to it | Cry over spilt milk | Curiosity killed the cat | Cut corners | Cut the mustard | Devil's Advocate | Don't count your chickens before the eggs have hatched | Don't give up the day job | Don't put all your eggs in one basket | Drastic times call for drastic measures | Elvis has left the building | Every cloud has a silver lining | Far cry from | Feel a bit under the weather | Give the benefit of the doubt | A chip on your shoulder | A dime a dozen | A fool and his money are soon parted | A piece of cake | All Greek to me | Back to square one | Beating a dead horse | Between a rock and a hard place | Break the ice | Burst your bubble | A chip on your shoulder | Close but no cigar | Cry wolf | Curiosity killed the cat | Cut the mustard | Cut to the chase | A whale of time | Over the moon | In a nutshell | Flying colours...
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...Blues vs Country music According to Etta James in an interview with American Chronicle: "The Blues and country are first cousins ... What I look for in a song is for the story to be for real. I like a blood and guts kind of thing. That's what you find in the lyrics of country music." Blues and country music both developed in the 19th century in the Southern United States. They share a similar history. For this reason, they share many of the same musical and lyrical characteristics. Read more: How to Compare Blues & Country Music | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5888119_compare-blues-country-music.htInstructions 1. * 1 Learn the history behind blues and country music. They are both forms of American folk music influenced by earlier styles brought overseas. Blues music grew out of field hollers and chants sung by African slaves. Irish and Scottish balladeers borrowed the guitar and banjo of blues and thus created "country". According to Reebee Garofalo in "Rockin' Out: Popular Music in the USA", "Terms like country and blues are only used to separate the same kind of music made by blacks and whites ... designations like race and hillbilly intentionally separated artists along racial lines and conveyed the impression that their music came from mutually exclusive sources." Country is an offshoot of blues. They are essentially the same thing. In the PBS special, "Rhythm, Country and Blues," country is referred to as "white man's blues." * 2 Listen to...
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...And to do while listening to old REM Rain is falling on the fields. We shield ourselves in acid metal pop. But there’s green all around us, and it never gives up. Harmony grows and ebbs, like it was meant to, all around us, now it’s bent too. Ghosts in the meadows, ephemeral in their gaze, they hang around, waiting for love to equate, their state. There’s a drum beat, slow, and dumb, keeping the time, almost silently. And the guitar strings, they sing melodically, in chords and tabs written, in heaven and forgotten, as some silly hooks. We burn books in our minds, but keep them on our shelves, so that we can revisit them, when we need a piece of hell. We fight and laugh, and fall in love blessed, almost every time, we meet again. while listening to old REM Rain is falling on the fields. We shield ourselves in acid metal pop. But there’s green all around us, and it never gives up. Harmony grows and ebbs, like it was meant to, all around us, now it’s bent too. Ghosts in the meadows, ephemeral in their gaze, they hang around, waiting for love to equate, their state. There’s a drum beat, slow, and dumb, keeping the time, almost silently. And the guitar strings, they sing melodically, in chords and tabs written, in heaven and forgotten, as some silly hooks. We burn books in our minds, but keep them on our shelves, so that we can revisit them, when we need a piece of hell. We fight and laugh, and fall in love blessed, almost every time, we meet again. while listening...
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...The Wheels On The Racecar By Alexander Zane Bibliographic Information: Zane, Alexander. The Wheels On The Racecar. New York: Orchard Books, 2005. Element of Music: Beat, Melody, and Timbre Materials: The Wheels On The Racecar Happy children ready to sing along Student Placement: Sitting in a circle in chairs Activity: The student will sing along with the teacher to The Wheels On The Racecar The student will repeat round and round three times The student will repeat vroom-vroom-vroom three times The student will repeat go-go-go three times The student will repeat zip-zip-zip three times The student will repeat steers and steers three times The student will repeat zizz-zizz-zizz three times The student will repeat glug-glug-glug three times The student will repeat speeds on back three times The student will repeat makes his move three times The student will repeat zooms to the lead three times The student will repeat swish-swish-swish three times The student will repeat round and round three times JUMP! By Scott M. Fischer Bibliographic Information: Fischer, Scott. JUMP!. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010. Element of Music: Beat, Rhythm, Form, Timbre Materials: JUMP! Active children ready to have fun and dance Student Placement: Standing up in a single line facing the front of the class Activity The student will hold hand on cheeks to indicate sleepy mode The student will hear frog and jump high The student will hold hand on...
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