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.
Three groups of subjects have been divided (25/group): healthy normotensive non-pregnant women (Group A), normal normotensive pregnant women (Group B), and women with preeclampsia (Group C).The levels of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), total bilirubin , creatinine , blood urea nitrogen, triglyceride , total cholesterol and glucose have been estimated in all subjects. All measured parameters were determined by spectrophotometric analysis. The results showed a significant(P<0.05) increase in serum ALT, AST, blood urea nitrogen, triglyceride and total cholesterol levels in group B as compared to group A. However creatinine, total bilirubin and glucose levels did not show any statistical significant alt
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the study covered theoretical concering parial molal volume the applicability of jones-dole equation
The preparation of a new Azo compounds of highly conjugated dimeric and polymeric liquid crystal to achieve the crystalline characteristics Which have structures assigned based on elemental analysis, IR 1HNMR and CHNS-O while mesogenic properties have been set for DSC and hot-stage polarizing optical microscopy. The compounds show enantiotropicnematic phase being displayed. The compounds show photoluminescence properties in the organic solution at room temperature, with the fluorescence band centered around 400 nm.
An increasing number of emerging contaminants have been detected in surface waters, sediment, soil and ground water in different locations in the world, which is a new environmental challenges need an actual concern for international scientific and legislative communities.
The nonprescription and huge used pharmaceuticals ibuprofen and diclofenac sodium will be focused in this study. New adsorbent developed using cheap inorganic clay material (bentonite) and organic polymer polyureaformaldehyde (PUF), the combination of these two materials gave the surface more roughness with wide active site distribution. Batch adsorption experiment performed to each pharmaceutical individually to determine the optimum separat
... Show MoreNew substituted coumarins derivatives were synthesized by using nitration reaction to produce different nitro coumarin isomers which were separated from these isomers by using different solvent, and the reduction of nitro compounds was done to give corresponding amino coumarins. Temperature and reaction time of reaction were very important factors in determining the most productive nitro isotopes. A low temperature for three hours was sufficient to give a high product of a compound 6-nitro coumarin while increasing the temperature for a period of twenty-four hours that gave a high product of 8-nitro-coumarin. The synthesized compounds were confirmed by FT-IR,1 H-NMR, and13 C-NMR spectroscopy and all final compounds were tested for their ant
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The elections of the Council of Representatives in Iraq are one of the manifestations of political participation, which makes it attracts the attention of researchers. Where Iraq witnessed in 2005 important political events in the Iraqi arena, a pluralist parliamentary elections or elections in Iraq by direct free election on January 30, the first almost half a century ago. On November 15 of the same year, Iraq adopted a permanent constitution for the country through a popular referendum.
The electronic payment systems are considered the most important infrastructure for the work of banks, particularly after a steady and remarkable development in information and communication technology, Which created the reality of the work of the infrastructure for these systems and these systems also become one of the most important components of infrastructure for the work of banks, cause it is one of the most important channels through which the transfer of cash, financial instruments between financial institutions in general and banking in particular.
In order to achieve the objectives of the research, the most important to identify the concept of electronic payment systems, and its divisions, and th
... Show MoreThe implicit pattern is one of the cultural patterns that are present in both the text and theatrical presentation and the reading of the implicit pattern cannot take place without cognitive references, whether audio or visual as well as historical references and the natural, social and psychological dimensions of communities and individuals.
The researcher, in this study, attempted to focus on the axis of the aesthetic preoccupations of the implicit pattern in the theatrical presentation and the definition of the implicit pattern. Methodologically speaking, the research problem focused on revealing the outlines and the main features in the aesthetic preoccupations that shape the i
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Complexity is the inherent characteristic of contemporary organizations. It is characterized by the intertwining and expansion of its relations, by the severe disorder and rapid change in its environment, which makes it suffer from a state of uncertainty in determining the direction of its future or the assessment of the rules governing its paths. All organizations tend to evolve with increasing sophistication, And to take measures that contribute to the simplification of the system as it moves towards complexity, allowing the administration to easily control its movement and directions, and the problem of complexity in the university is based on the entanglement and overlap in the goals and processes betwe
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