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[Archive] Idioms and other posts

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Corinnebelle

[Archive] Idioms and other posts

Post by Corinnebelle »

This is an archive post of posts I made and enjoyed interacting on Duolingo with fellow Duolingoers.

Dead right--another one of those idioms

"You know he's dead right?"
"You know he's dead, right?"

The simple addition or deletion of a comma changes the meaning entirely between something that means entirely true, like hitting the nail on the head to rigor mortis. "Dead on" is another way to say "dead right" in its idiomatic meaning except when you're tired and "dead on your feet". "Dead set" means absolutely.

On the other hand "deadbeat" means tired, exhausted and a dead beat dad is one that is not involved in his children's lives physically or monetarily.

While a dead horse is an issue that is referred to continually. When you smell a dead horse somebody hasn't dropped the issue, meanwhile someone else might flog it by continuing arguing also.

It seems our language has a fascination with death!

Another interesting idiomatic word we use is "cool" for great! Cool has a lot of other meanings like losing "one's cool" where one loses control as well.

You wouldn't expect a rigor mortised "right" to be absolutely correct neither would you expect something "cool" to be always amazing unless you learned the idiomatic sense of the words. What other words can you think of that have an opposite meaning or a confusing meaning compared to the literal sense?

Archive of comments

"Run down"-- the idiom

"Run down" can be used as idiom meaning to be exhausted. A more literal meaning would be "run down" with a car. A rather violent action. Another more idiomatic meaning is to find someone when you run them down. You can view more about "run down" in this idiomatic dictionary.

Was thinking of meanings of words which may not be obvious to foreign speakers. Do they use this idiom in other languages? What other idioms can you suggest that might not be obvious to foreigners or little children?

Running circles around someone mystified me at first because it means to be better than someone else.

Archive of comments

What is a squash?--Homonym

This is a discussion demonstrating the different meanings of the word "squash."

So have you eaten mashed squash?

Wait, isn't summer squash not easy to mash?

But then you can drink mango squash.

There's a kind of squash you can grow called mango squash?

No it's a drink a bit like cordial sometimes made with mangoes, or it might have other fruit in it and go by those names.

But isn't squash a game?

You mean squashing people?

Um, no you use a racket to hit a rubber ball.

I will have to squash into the train.

You will not squash my idea!

There are actually more meanings for squash than that!

Comments:

Dcarl1
2015
There are often multiple meanings for words: it’s what makes translation an art not a science.

Bill: a diminutive for William, a proposed law, paper currency, the beak of a waterfowl, the visor of a cap, a halberd or similar weapon, a program listing, a poster or handbill, to invoice, an invoice, a mattock, to caress lovingly…and more…,

Corinnebelle
2210109664444322172
Haven't heard of bill being a mattock, or to caress lovingly. How does someone bill someone that way? [Edit: I looked it up. It's a bird kiss.] It sounds rather sharp when you think of it as a mattock!

Are all languages as bad as English for this? They call it the illegitimate language! Seal is another fascinating word! A seal swimming in the ocean is my seal's emblem. I like how English has so many meanings and branches and pathways.

Dcarl1
2015
The phrase “bill and coo” meaning canoodling or exchanging lovey dovey caresses comes from this.

Judit294350
241054912
Don't know about all languages. A third of Hungarian non-technical words have at least three meanings; there are some with more than 12 distinct meanings.

On the other side is synonyms. Learning synonyms is a standard exercise in our Hungarian class. We once learnt 37 synonyms for "very". I was so pleased - then my teacher said that was just the common ones!

Joseph297228
252525257784
blinks

lanadelrey101
2525189853
Squash is such a cute word :)

The strangeness of English words

I know English is weird, we have similar words for totally different things as well as homonyms. Do you think English words are spelled weird? I look at the letters and I'm like, don't make no sense!

Archive of comments

Grok--words that fascinate me

I first remembering reading this word in the book "The winds of Mara" where the author, Colin Fletcher, learns to grok the situation of the African plain instead of just having an intellectual knowledge of it.

The following is grok's entry in Wikitionary

Etymology

Coined by Robert A. Heinlein in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) in which the word is described as being from the word for “to drink” and, figuratively, “to drink in all available aspects of reality”, “to become one with the observed” in Heinlein’s fictitious Martian language. William Tenn later asked Heinlein if the term could have been inspired by the term "griggo", which featured in Tenn's 1949 "Venus and the Seven Sexes"; Heinlein "looked startled, then thought about it for a long time (and) shrugged, (saying) 'It's possible, very possible.'"

Pronunciation

(UK) IPA(key): /ˈɡɹɒk/

(US) IPA(key): /ˈɡɹɑk/

Rhymes: -ɒk

Verb

grok (third-person singular simple present groks, present participle grokking, simple past and past participle grokked)

(transitive, slang) To understand (something) intuitively.

To know (something) without having to think intellectually (such as knowing the number of objects in a collection without needing to count them:

(transitive, slang) To fully and completely understand something in all of its details and intricacies.

I finally grok Perl.

I find it exceedingly doubtful that any person groks quantum mechanics.

Usage notes
Grok is used mainly by the geek subculture, though it was heavily used by the counterculture of the 1960s, as evidenced by its repeated appearance in Tom Wolfe's “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.”

Descendants

→ French: gnoquer

→ Italian: groccare

→ Slovene: gročiti

→ Russian: гро́кать (grókatʹ)

→ Russian: гро́кнуть (gróknutʹ)

Anyone have ideas or sentences using this word?

Archive of comments

🇺🇸 L1 🇮🇱 Advanced beginner Duolingo levels

Languages without borders, languages bridging gaps, the Red Cross are my heroes.

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dakanga

Re: [Archive] Idioms and other posts

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