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.
Experimental investigations had been done in this study to demonstrate the effect of natural particles used as a reinforcement material to unsaturated polyester resin. The tensile test and water absorption were investigated according to (ASTM D638) and (ASTM D570), respectively. The influence of sunflower husk and pomegranate husk particles, used as a reinforcement material, on the tensile strength, Young's modulus and water absorption with different weight fraction (3%, 7% and 10%) and particle grain size (50µm, 100 µm and 150 µm), has been investigated. The water absorption of polymer composites was studied by measuring the specimen weight before and after immersion in water for one hundred days. In the experiments of tensile test,
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The research aims to identify the role of organizational identity in improving work teams, and to suggest ways to deal with the outputs of work teams in a way that achieves the goals of the Baghdad Traffic Directorate as it is the subject of the application of the research, while the research community was represented by its officers, while the research sample was embodied in (General Director, Associate The Director General, the directors of Rusafa and Karkh traffic and their assistants, as well as the heads of the divisions and the officials of the departments) in it. The sample was (200) observations. The descriptive exploratory approach was devoted to conducting the research, relying on the questionnaire in data collection, as well as e
... Show MoreHands have consistently been an important vehicle in the transmission of disease (1). Thus, thorough hand-washing remains the single most important factor in preventing infection specially in hospitals and labs.Twenty-nine non-clinical volunteers (do not work or come in contact with a clinical or hospital setting) that lacked visible skin injuries, eczema or apparent skin disease were used, those subjects were all tested by a material of each of the three used in the study weekly and laboratory tests were done pre- and post washing.All three material were effective , Eugenol extract as effective as the bar and lotion soap. And this was confirmed statistically.Eugenol has a great antibacterial action even in small concentration and t
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The purpose of this study was to evaluate the anesthetic effectiveness of a buccal infiltration technique combined with local massage (using 2% lidocaine) in the extraction of mandibular premolars to be utilized as an alternative to the conventional inferior alveolar nerve block.
Patients eligible included any subject with a clinical indication for tooth extraction of the mandibular 1st or 2nd premolars. All patients were anesthetized buccally by local infiltration technique followed by an external pressure applied for 1 min directly over the injection area. In each case, another local
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Nutlets of 22 taxa of Stachys (13 species and seven subspecies and two varieties), representing seven of the currently recognized sections distributed in northern Iraq were examined by light microscope. The basic shape of nutlets in most taxa studied is Obovoid, but Oblong also found in S.megalodanta Hausskn.& Bornm. ex P.H.Davis, S.setirefa C.A.Mey. subsp daenensis (Gandog.) Rech.f.and S. kurdica Boiss.& Hohen. var.kurdica, while the Subgloboid shape found in S. iberica M.Bieb. and S. inflata Benth., more over the Broad triangular shape was found in S. nephrophylla Rech.f. and S.lanigera (Bornm.) Rech.f.., the biggest size of nutlets was found in S.inflata L. and the smallest was in S.melampyroides Hand.-Mzt. Regarding sculpturing pa
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Soil invertebrates community an important role as part of essential food chain and responsible for the decomposition in the soil, helps soil aeration , nutrients recycling and increase agricultural production by providing the essential elements necessary for photosynthesis and energy flow in ecosystems.The aim of the present study was to investigate the soil invertebrates community in one of the date palms plantation in Aljaderia district South of Baghdad, , and their relationships with some physical and chemical properties of the soil , as Five randomly distributed replicates of soil samples were collected monthly. Invertebrates samples were sorted from the soil with two methods, direct method to isolate large invertebrates and indirec
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Due to increased consumption of resources, especially energy it was necessary to find alternatives characterized by the same quality as well as being of less expensive, and most important of these alternatives are characterized by waste and the fact that humancannot stop consumption. So we have consideredwaste as an alternative and cheap economic resources and by using environmental index the MIP (input materials per unit ,unit / service) is based on the grounds that the product is not the end of itselfit is a product to meet the need of a product or service, awarded a resource input and output within the five basic elements are the raw materials is ecological, Raw materials ecological, water, air and soil erosion for a
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