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.
Alterations of trace element concentrations adversely affect biological processes and could promote carcinogenesis. Trace element deficiency or excess is implicated in the development or progression of some cancers like colorectal cancer. The aim of the present study was to compare the serum copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) concentrations in patients with colorectal cancer from Iraqi male patient with those of healthy subjects. During the period of March 2015 until august 2015, a total of 25 patients with metastatic colon cancer and 20 healthy volunteers were enrolled from the Al-Kadhimia Teaching Hospital after the diagnosis using a histopathological examination for the malignant tumor; their age was between (38-60) years. Higher levels o
... Show Morethe study including isolation and identification of candida spp causing UTIs from patintes coming to al-yarmouk hospital
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This study investigates the improvement of Iraqi atmospheric gas oil characteristics which contains 1.402 wt. % sulfur content and 16.88 wt. % aromatic content supplied from Al-Dura Refinery by using hydrodesulfurization (HDS) process using Ti-Ni-Mo/γ-Al2O3 prepared catalyst in order to achieve low sulfur and aromatic saturation gas oil. Hydrodearomatization (HDA) occurs simultaneously with hydrodesulfurization (HDS) process. The effect of titanium on the conventional catalyst Ni-Mo/γ-Al2O3 was investigated by physical adsorption and catalytic activity test. Ti-Ni-Mo/γ-Al2O3 catalyst was prepared under vacuum impregnation condition to ensure efficient precipitation of metals within the carrier γ-Al2O3. The loading percentage of met
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The hydroconversion of Iraqi light straight run naphtha was studied on zeolite catalyst. 0.3wt.%Pt/HMOR catalyst was prepared locally and used in the present work. The hydroconversion performed on a continuous fixed-bed laboratory reaction unit. Experiments were performed in the temperature range of 200 to 350°C, pressure range of 3 to 15 bars, LHSV range of 0.5-2.5h-1, and the hydrogen to naphtha ratio of 300.
The results show that the hydroconversion of Iraqi light straight naphtha increases with increase in reaction temperature and decreases with increase in LHSV.
High octane number isomers were formed at low temperature of 240°C. The selectivity of hydroisomerization improved by increasing reaction pressu
... Show MoreTin dioxide (SnO2) were mixed with (TiO2 and CuO) with concentration ratio (50, 60, 70, 80 and 90) wt% films deposited on single crystal Si and glass substrates at (523 K) by spray pyrolysis technique from aqueous solutions containing tin (II) dichloride Dihydrate (SnCl2, 2H2O), dehydrate copper chloride (CuCl2.2H2O) and Titanium(III) chloride (TiCl3) with molarities (0.2 M). The results of electrical properties and analysis of gas sensing properties of films are presented in this report. Hall measurement showed that films were n-type converted to p- type as titanium and copper oxide added at (50) % ratio. The D.C conductivity measurements referred that there are two mechanisms responsible about the conductivity, hence it possess two act
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One of the most important challenges facing the designers of the sewerage system is the corrosion of sewers due to the influence of sewerage contaminates which lead to failure of the main lines of sewers. In this study, a reference mix of 1: 1.5: 3 was used and the 4% Flocrete PC200 by weight of cement was added to the same mixing ratio in the second mixture. Twenty-four samples were tested for each mixture, 12 of which were used to compression strength test in ages (7, 14 and 28) day and six samples were submerged after 28 days of wet treatment at (5 and 10) % concentrations of sulfuric acid. The other six samples were painted after 28 days of wet treatment with coating Polyurethane and after 24 hours were flooded with a concentrat
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This paper aims to study the second-order geometric nonlinearity effects of P-Delta on the dynamic response of tall reinforced concrete buildings due to a wide range of earthquake ground motion forces, including minor earthquake up to moderate and strong earthquakes. The frequency domain dynamic analysis procedure was used for response assessment. Reinforced concrete building models with different heights up to 50 stories were analyzed. The finite element software ETABS (version 16.0.3) was used to analyze reinforced concrete building models.
The study reveals that the percentage increase in buildings' sway and drift due to P-Delta effects are nearly constant for specific building height irrespective of the seism
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Alterations of trace element concentrations adversely affect biological processes and could promote carcinogenesis. Trace element deficiency or excess is implicated in the development or progression of some cancers like colorectal cancer. The aim of the present study was to compare the serum copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) concentrations in patients with colorectal cancer from Iraqi male patient with those of healthy subjects. During the period of March 2015 until august 2015, a total of 25 patients with metastatic colon cancer and 20 healthy volunteers were enrolled from the Al-Kadhimia Teaching Hospital after the diagnosis using a histopathological examination for the malignant tumor; their age was between (38-60) years. Higher
... Show More