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.
AbstractBACKGROUND: Some cases of vitiligo require melanocyte transplantation, but these surgical techniques have varying degrees of success. OBJECTIVES: To perform melanocytes transplantion in patients with vitiligo using a new needling micrografting technique. PATIENTS and METHODS: This interventional case study took place at the Department of Dermatology and Venereology at Baghdad Teaching Hospital from December 2010 to September 2011. Twelve patients with vitiligo were included. A split-thickness skin graft was taken from the normal area and cut into micropieces ranging from 0.1 mm to 0.3 mm in diameter. The recipient area was anesthetized, and the micrografts were then implanted into the dermis using the needling technique. The number
... Show MoreObjective(s): The main aim of the study is to determine the level of burden on mothers toward children with anorectal malformation.
Methodology: A descriptive study was carried out at Welfare Pediatric Teaching Hospital and Central Pediatric Teaching Hospital in Baghdad City. From November 15th, 2017 to April 29th, 2018. Convenient sample comprised of (140) children mothers with anorectal malformation were interviewed for the study. The instrument of study is composed of six domains related mothers' burden toward psychosocial burden as a result of child with anorectal malformation. Validity of the study instrument was determined through a panel of experts and the reliability of the questionnaire is determined in a pilot study among (1
Objective: To assess the effect of education program on psychological and social changes of secondary school teachers with menopause.
Method: A quasi-experimental design is carried out with the application of a pre- post –test for menopause secondary school teacher's bio-psychosocial changes. Non-probability sample consists of (60 female teachers) (40) teachers from Al- Rusafa first Education Directorate secondary schools, and (20) teachers from Al- Karkh third Education Directorate secondary schools. The sample was exposed to pretest, educational program, and posttest. Data were collected through the utilization of the study instrument (the questionnaire) and application of bio-psychosocial ed
... Show MoreObjectives of the study: To assess nurses knowledge regarding oxytocin administration during labor and
delivery in maternity hospitals, and to find out the relationship between nurses knowledge and studied
variables (age, level of education, work times (shift) experience year, training course in nursing field).
Methodology: Descriptive analytic study was conducted on non-probability sample (convenient) of (70) nurses
to assess nurse’s knowledge related to oxytocin administration. The study is conducted at Al- kut Hospital for
Gynecology Obstetrics and Pediatrics and Al- Zahraa Teaching Hospital during periods 5th February to 24th
April 2013, A questionnaire was used as a tool of data collection to fulfill with objecti
Objectives: The study aimed to assess the needs of nurses' knowledge toward post operative wound care and to constructed health educational program upon nurses who are working in surgical wards, to determine the relation between nurses' knowledge and their demographical characteristic which includes ( age, gender, level of education, number of years experience in the surgical wards, years of experience in nursing service, and number of attending an educational sessions), and to identify the impact of the health educational program on their knowledge through perform post-test every two months after imp
Abstract:
Objective(s): The present study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Health educational program on nurses' knowledge toward children pneumonia at Al-Amara City hospitals..
Methods: A quasi –experimental study design two-study group (pretest-posttest 1 and posttest 2) carried out at Alzahrawy Hospital and Child and maternity hospital in Al Amara City to identify the effectiveness of the Health educational program on Nurses Knowledge toward Children pneumonia; the study was conducted between 1 of September 2019 to 1 of April 2020. A Purposive (Non-probability) sample is chosen for the present study. The size of sample is (60) nur
... Show MoreThe present research was conducted to reduce the sulfur content of Iraqi heavy naphtha by adsorption using different metals oxides over Y-Zeolite. The Y-Zeolite was synthesized by a sol-gel technique. The average size of zeolite was 92.39 nm, surface area 558 m2/g, and pore volume 0.231 cm3/g. The metals of nickel, zinc, and copper were dispersed by an impregnation method to prepare Ni/HY, Zn/HY, Cu/HY, and Ni + Zn /HY catalysts for desulfurization. The adsorptive desulfurization was carried out in a batch mode at different operating conditions such as mixing time (10,15,30,60, and 600 min) and catalyst dosage (0.2,0.4,0.6,0.8,1, and 1.2 g). The most of the sulfur compounds were removed at 10 min for all catalyst ty
... Show MoreThe parameter and system reliability in stress-strength model are estimated in this paper when the system contains several parallel components that have strengths subjects to common stress in case when the stress and strengths follow Generalized Inverse Rayleigh distribution by using different Bayesian estimation methods. Monte Carlo simulation introduced to compare among the proposal methods based on the Mean squared Error criteria.