Suppose someone is in a routine chit chat and says to you, “I always forget to dot my i’s and to cross my t’s” Will you be able to understand this all easily? Expressions like these are the idiomatic style of the language. Forgetting to dot i’s and forgetting to cross t’s is about someone’s weak memory.
Sounds interesting?
Suppose you are in an English-speaking country and someone says, “we are on the same page” would you take it as someone is talking about a book? No, of course not, but the speakers here are trying to tell that they agree on the topic they are talking about.
In today’s blog post, let us assist you to “color up your language with the 9 worthy idioms” that can enrich your daily language. The first and foremost is,
“Hit The Sack”- When Someone Is Going To Sleep Or Tired
Around the late 1800s to early 1900s, when mattresses used to consist of old sacks filled with hay or straw, this phrase originated in America.
To understand it well, we can see it in an example, After all that workout, I am very tired. I’m going to be hitting the sack. We were all dead exhausted after the long road trip and ready to hit the hay as soon as we reached home.
That’s The Last Straw-When Someone Says “My Patience Has Ran Out”
We have to go a little back to the old English, “it is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back,” the origin of the idiom ‘the last straw’ can be found. It was first seen around 1755, and many different forms of the statement were used between then and about 1836, with the suffering animal sometimes described as a horse or an elephant rather than a camel.
Example can be, “She had been unhappy with him for a long time, but it was the last straw when he crashed into her car.”
“Add Insult To Injury”-When Someone Is Making A Bad Situation Worse
Adding insult to injury means making a bad situation worse by adding more issues, embarrassment, or scorn to the bad scenario. It is a very old term to add insult to injury, coming from one of the fables told by Aesop, who lived in ancient Greece. The Bald Man and the Fly is the fable in question. The bald man bites a fly on the head. The bald man slaps himself on the head in an attempt to kill the fly, so hard that he hurts himself. As he escapes, the fly mocks the bald man: “You want to avenge the sting of an insect with death; what are you going to do to yourself, who has added insult to injury?” The moral is the avenger will be harmed by it’s own revenge.
“Bite Off More Than You Can Chew- The Idiom Is Used When You Take On A Project That You Cannot Finish Or Complete
The proverb is meant to originate in America, and it is possible to trace the oldest written records of the phrase from the 1870s. For instance, in a book originally published in 1877, called ‘Western Wilds, and the Men Who Redeem Them’ by John Hanson Beadle.
See it in the sentence,as, “He is obviously chewing off more than he can chew by taking two part-time jobs.”
“Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining-The Idiom Is Used When You Have To Tell Someone That Good Things Come After Bad Things
The root of the idiom “every cloud has a silver lining” is most likely traceable to the year 1634, when his masque Comus was penned by John Milton. “The quote appears in it as “Was I fooled or on the night did a sable cloud turn out her silver lining?
“Hit The Nail On The Head”-When You Have To Say Do Something Exactly Right
This term, very clearly, has its origins in carpentry, but it is not clear when it began to be used. The analogy is clear. You’d want to strike it on its head to get the desired result when hammering in a nail. Missing the head can mean causing surface damage or even injury to yourself.
“Fit As A Fiddle-It Is normally Used For The Health, When Telling You Are In Good Health
The word suited as a fiddle in British English dating back to the 1600s, but then had a somewhat different meaning. “The word fit had the primary meaning of “well-suited, appropriate for a specific function. Due to the alliteration of fit and fiddle, and because the violin is a beautifully formed instrument that produces a very unique tone, the violin was chosen as the exemplar.
“Jump On The Bandwagon”-When Someone Is Following A Trend, Doing What Everyone Else Is Doing
In 1848, a famous and influential circus clown of the time, used his bandwagon and its music to gain publicity for his political campaigns, the term “jump on the bandwagon” first appeared in U.S. politics.
“Let Sleeping Dogs Lie”-To Ask Someone To Stop Discussing An Issue
“Let Sleeping Dogs Lie” comes from the longstanding observation that, when they are unexpectedly disturbed, dogs are always unpredictable. “It is naught good a sleeping hound to wake.” The term may have begun as a warning about the possibility of waking a potentially dangerous animal, but it later turned metaphorical.
Learning to speak idioms will polish up your language and will make you sound more native. Learn them to make your language more catchy and effective by practicing idiomatic language more and more. Color up your daily language with this powerful tool of the English language today.
