Bengelsdorf Peter. - Idioms in the News - 1, 000 phrases, real examples

Idioms in the News

by Peter Bengelsdorf

Copyright Peter Bengelsdorf

First published: September, 2012 Updated: March, 2013; September, 2013

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the years of work that the author dedicated to this book.

Contents

Americans love to use idioms, phrases that are colorful and mysterious. Whether you are a native English speaker or learning the language, you will find this book useful and entertaining. If you teach English, this book will be a valuable resource.

It explains phrases (combinations of words) that are difficult or impossible to understand based on the usual meaning of the words. Knowing the usual meaning of grease and palm doesn't help us understand that greasing someone's palm can mean tipping generously or bribing.

Some of the phrases are considered idiomatic because they include a word that is not often used. An example is hunker in hunker down .

In a phrasal verb, a verb gets a special meaning when combined with another word. For example, act can mean "do something" or "perform in a play or movie." But act up means "behave badly," and act out means "have an emotional outburst." There are thousands of phrasal verbs. The ones in this book have meanings that you would not expect based on the usual meaning of the words when used separately.

You can find definitions of many idiomatic phrases on the Internet. Such definitions can be helpful. But examples of the phrases, as they are used in standard language, often give us a better under standing of their meaning.

Explaining idioms in my English classes has made me more aware that definitions alone can be misleading.

Almost all the entries in this book are among the most-used expressions in American English.

Many of the citations are from news accounts produced by major media organizations, which generally use language considered to be "mainstream" or "standard." The examples are brief just long enough to help us understand the phrases. They will not help you understand the news. If one of the citations from a news organization mentions a topic that interests you, I suggest visiting the Web site of the source.

15 minutes of fame

There are things about me that my girls will only know from the stories told by old friends: How I earned my 15 minutes of fame as the editor of my high-school newspaper, which decided to devote most of its 28 pages to the topic of sex. Austin American-Statesman (11/18/2011)

"Everything that he is saying is false and nonsense," says Kardashian's lawyer, Marty Singer. "This guy is in it to promote himself for his 15 minutes of fame." New York Post (11/14/2011)

Winning bidders got their 15 minutes of fame with bit parts in movies and TV shows at auctions benefitting the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Southern Florida. The Miami Herald (11/12/2011)

"Today, it's all about your set five minutes of fame, and then it's over for you." Ian Gillan, lead singer for the English rock band Deep Purple (2/19/2013)

15 minutes of fame comes from Andy Warhol's 1968 statementas famous as his artthat "in the future everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes."

As in the New York Post example, the phrase is sometimes used as an insult, accusing someone of seeking publicity for a bad or selfish purpose. But in most uses it is neutral, assuming there's no harm in people wanting a little bit of fame.

Gillan made this idiom 10 minutes shorter, or he was misquoted. But that variation of the expression is common. As TV commercials and movie scenes get shorter, 15 minutes seems longer than it did in 1968.

20-20 hindsight

"Everybody reported to the executive director, and with 20-20 hindsight, that is not a good system." Jack Schaffer, a member of the board directors of Metra, Chicago's commuter rail system (5/15/2010)

"With 20-20 hindsight and all that has followed I would not have offered him the job and I expect he would not have taken it." U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron (7/20/2011)

"In the rearview, with 20-20 hindsight, would we have changed some things? Maybe." Kevin Hamilton, police chief in Fullerton, California (8/13/2011)

"Hindsight is 20-20. I still think we made decisions that were right at the time. It's really easy for someone to be an armchair quarterback." Lindsay Vonn, talking about competing in downhill ski races (3/7/2011)

"Looking back, of course with 20-20 hindsight, I wish we would have done more to encourage competition." Jill Sommers, former member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, talking about large financial institutions that continue to dominate derivatives trading (9/4/2013)

If you have 20-20 vision, you can see clearly. 20-20 hindsight means seeing the past clearly.

A common expression, "hindsight is 20-20," means, "It's easy to see things clearly when they are in the past."

In the news examples, "with 20-20 hindsight" means "knowing what we know now."

Lindsay Vonn's "armchair quarterback" referred to people who are not involved in something but give their opinions about it, or make judgments long after the event is over. See .

20-20 (sometimes spelled 20/20 or 20:20) refers to a measuring system in which the first number is the distance in feet from an eye-test chart, and the second is related to the size of the symbols on the chart. In places where meters are used instead of feet, hindsight is 6-6.

20-20 dates to the 1860's and 1870's, when Herman Snellen was developing the eye charts named after him. "20-20 hindsight" did not become popular until the mid-1950's. The earliest example in my searches was in a 1951 statement to a Senate committee by Secretary of State Dean Acheson:

"It seems better...to put these events that we have been talking about in the context of their time instead of trying to view them with the 20-20 hindsight that so many of our distinguished gentlemen seem to be gifted with." (6/8/1951)

800-pound gorilla

See

a bird in the hand

Although Renaissance Learning officials are taking the [new] offer "ver y seriously"... board members still must pursue the Permira deal, James said... "It's a bird in the hand." Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune (8/26/2011)

Barnes & Noble's future remains uncertain. So the board may prefer to take the bird in the hand in the form of the Liberty Media bid, particularly since the risk of Barnes & Noble's digital strategy is high. The New York Times (1/1/2011)

In January, Mr. Cymbal sold the land to Sweet Virginia Acquisitions LLC..."My initial response was I'm not selling because this was my baby. But I kept hearing my mother saying 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,'" says Mr. Cymbal. The Wall Street Journal (2/1/2012)

A bird in the hand is a shortened version of an old saying: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Its current meaning, usually, is having something now is more valuable than the possibility of having something greater in the future.

The old saying, which has been traced to the 1500's, alluded to the use of trained falcons to catch smaller birds. I t was better to have a falcon in one's hand than two small birds caught in the bush.

Few people are aware of the origin. As the news examples show, the meaning of the expression has changed.

a far cry, far from it

Carpe Diem Collegiate High School and Middle School is a far cry from the schools that today's parents attended. The Arizona Republic (3/6/2011)

"I think those songs are still a far cry from the full-length [recording] that will be coming out this upcoming summer..." singer Philip Anselmo (1/7/2013)

"But that doesn't mean South Florida's leadership ranks are filled. Far from it." The Miami Herald (3/7/2011)