Hard to call someone a horse’s ass: idiom usage
Having said good-bye to the last of the Easter holiday makers in Durban, a coastal town in South Africa, we started to make our way home on Monday. On the…
Are these your monkeys?
Not my circus, not my monkeys. Idiom usage
Not my circus. Not my monkeys. I did a double take. I was having coffee with my Irish friend Paul and he was throwing this phrase around throughout our conversation.…
Black swan as a metaphor for unprecedented events
Black swan, a label for COVID-19
In much of my research for clients in the past couple of months I have often seen the term black swan. As I know swans to be white in most…
How thinking ‘outside of the bottle’ can save us from coronavirus
The world has gone mad with the outbreak of Coronavirus. And we have had some interesting reactions. One of the church ministers said in response to gatherings of no more…
Novak Djokovic enjoys the limelight
Limelight or spotlight? Use the right phrase.
The English language is full of tricks and words of similar meaning that are confusing to second language speakers. One of these is limelight and spotlight. While some believe that…
Madness
Black Friday and bargain idioms
When Game of Thrones captured the imagination of millions of fans to an obsessive degree, I used to say, “You get two kinds of people – those who watch Game…
Take the log out of your eye and other idioms
Last night while watching Come Dine With Me, I latched on to satirist David Lamb’s shortening of an idiom. He simply used the two words of comparison and said, pot/…
pic by Joel Muniz
Keep the ball rolling with these idioms
This week I received a rather disturbing SMS from my bank. In fact, this was the second time the bank was sending this alarming message. The first time, I checked…
No leg to stand on: How idioms originate
Having suffered a leg injury in December I could not walk and could not drive. I was practically immobile. In my static state I had plenty of time to think.…
Saint Nicholas Cathedral, Monaco, a fine sedulous work
Deliciously sedulous : increase your word power
I am catching up with the past, voraciously reading through the pages of William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice with a copyright date of 1979. A literary marvel, the author provides delightful…