Idioms are a very important part of the English language: you are told that if you want to go far (succeed) you should pull your socks up (make a serious effort to improve your behaviour, the quality of your work, etc.) and use your grey matter (brain).1 Learning and translating idioms have always been very difficult for foreign language learners. The present paper explores some of the reasons why English idiomatic expressions are difficult to learn and translate. It is not the aim of this paper to attempt a comprehensive survey of the vast amount of material that has appeared on idioms in Adams and Kuder (1984), Alexander (1984), Dixon (1983), Kirkpatrick (2001), Langlotz (2006), McCarthy and O'Dell (2002), and Wray (2002), among others. The paper concentrates on idioms as a learning-translation problem; it makes no claim to be comprehensive or academically rigorous. Leech (1989) defines an idiom as follows: “An idiom is a group of two or more words which we have to treat as a unit in learning a language. We cannot arrive at the meaning of the idiom just by adding together the meanings of the words inside it. E.g.John and Mary usedto be hardup (='They had very little money'.)”(P.186) To be more exact, an idiom is a sequence of words which is semantically and syntactically restricted, so that they function as a single unit. From a semantic point of view, the meanings of the individual words cannot be summed to produce the meanings of the idiomatic expression as a whole. Thus, fly off the handle, which means lose one's temper, cannot be understood in terms of the meanings of fly, off, or handle. The idiom phrase hot air, which means empty or boastful talk, is neither hot nor air; with hot air we are dealing with a set phrase where the meaning cannot be suggested on the basis of the two constituent words. The idiomatic meaning of spill the beans in So who spilt the beans (=told the secret) about her affair with David? has nothing to do with beans or with spilling in its literal sense. The foreign-language learner is left trying to figure out where and how the beans were spilt. From a syntactic viewpoint, the constituent parts of an idiom often do not permit the usual variability they display in other contexts. The point to be emphasized here is this: most idioms do not lend themselves easily to manipulation by speakers and writers; they are invariable and must be learned as wholes, but concord ofnumber, person and gender in the idiom phrase is still necessary, i.e. the verbs must be put into the correct form, and pronouns must agree with their antecedents: I don't give a hoot for her opinion! 2 • She doesn't give a hoot for my opinion! etc.)║He won, but only by the skin of his teeth2• She won, but only by the skin of her teeth• Iwon, but only by the skin ofmy teeth,I had to run for the train, and caught it by the skin of myteeth, etc.║He kept pullingmy arm, throwing me off my balance 2 • She kept pulling his arm, throwing him off his balance • We kept pullingher arm, throwingher offher balance, etc.2 The present paper is divided into five parts, as follows: Part I: An Overview; PART II: Learner’s Difficulties with Idioms; PART III: Some Pedagogical recommendations and Suggestions about Idioms; Part IV: Activities to Practice Idiomatic Expressions; Part V: Summary and Conclusion.
structural and electrical of CuIn (Sex Te1-x)2
The adsorption of Malonic acid, Succinic acid, Adipic acid, and Azelaic acid from their aqueous solutions on zinc oxide surface were investigated. The adsorption efficiency was investigated using various factors such as adsorbent amount, contact time, initial concentration, and temperature. Optimum conditions for acids removal from its aqueous solutions were found to be adsorbent dose (0.2 g), equilibrium contact time (40 minutes), initial acids concentration (0.005 M). Variation of temperature as a function of adsorption efficiency showed that increasing the temperature would result in decreasing the adsorption ability. Kinetic modeling by applying the pseudo-second order model can provide a better fit of the data with a greater correla
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This paper discusses a comparative study to relate parametric and non-parametric mode decomposition algorithms for response-only data. Three popular mode decomposition algorithms are included in this study: the Eigensystem Realization Algorithm with the Natural Excitation Technique (NExT-ERA) for the parametric algorithm, as well as the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and the Independent Component Analysis (ICA) for the non-parametric algorithms. A comprehensive parametric study is provided for (i) different response types, (ii) excitation types, (iii) system damping, and (iv) sensor spatial resolution to compare the mode shapes and modal coordinates of using a 10-DOF building model. The mode decomposition results are also compared using
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To identify and explore the factors nurses perceive as influencing their knowledge acquisition in relation to diabetes care and its management in Saudi Arabia.
Diabetes continues to pose major healthcare challenges despite advances in diabetes management. Nurses have a crucial role in diabetes care, but diabetes knowledge deficits deter effective collaboration with other healthcare providers in educating patients about diabetes self‐management.
An exploratory descriptive qualitative design.
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The purpose of this study was to investigate the difference in mandibular trauma caused by two mechanisms for the delivery of missile injuries: firearms and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The data investigated included sex, age, mechanism of injury, and other clinical and radiographic manifestations. Seventy consecutive patients, predominantly male, with a mean age of 28.6 ± 14 years (range 2–60 years) were enrolled: 38 patients (54.3%) sustained mandibular fractures caused by bullet injuries and 32 patients (45.7%) had mandibular fractures caused by IED explosion injuries. The study revealed that the differences in most of the investigated variables were not statistically significant; the only significant differences were the inci
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Communication has seen a big advancement through ages; concepts, procedures and technologies, it has also seen a similar advancement of language. What unites language and media is the fact that each one of them guides and contributes to the other; media exists and results from language and from the other sign systems, and what strengthens this connection is the symbolic language system, as media helps it by providing knowledge and information. The change that occurred through time must leave a significant trace in the media, for example Diction, which has changed concerning development and growth, also the ways and mediums of media have become manifold and widespread. This change affected the recipient whether it was a reader, listener o
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In this study, ultraviolet (UV), ozone techniques with hydrogen peroxide oxidant were used to treat the wastewater which is produced from South Baghdad Power Station using lab-scale system. From UV-H2O2 experiments, it was shown that the optimum exposure time was 80 min. At this time, the highest removal percentages of oil, COD, and TOC were 84.69 %, 56.33 % and 50 % respectively. Effect of pH on the contaminants removing was studied in the range of (2-12). The best oil, COD, and TOC removal percentages (69.38 %, 70 % and 52 %) using H2O2/UV were at pH=12. H2O2/ozone experiments exhibited better performance compared to
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The current research aims to identify the effect of the program to develop the skill of friendship among kindergarten children, as well as the scope of the impact of the program on the sample. To achieve the objectives of the research, the researcher hypothesizes there is no significant difference between the average scores of the sample members on the friendship skill scale for the dimensional scale according to the experimental and control group. The research sample consisted of (60) girl and boy with age ranges (4-6) who were randomly selected from the Kindergarten Unity at Baghdad city/ Rusafa 1. The children were distributed into an experimental and control group, each group consists of (30) girl and boy. The two groups were chosen
... Show MoreBringing about urban, economic, and social changes in rural areas similar to those occurring in urban areas aims to reduce urban-rural disparities by providing services in those areas, decentralizing the management of these services, expanding citizen participation in local governance (decentralized administration), and achieving comprehensive development, developing and empowering localities, and keeping pace with new transformations and their impacts on the functions of the center and localities. In fact, the lack of clarity of the role of local government in planning and managing services has hindered development plans, and declined the level of services in rural areas, and has negative
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