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.
Abstract
Nowadays, the world adopts a philosophy that relates to environmental conservation. This philosophy can be achieved through providing environmentally friendly products while satisfying customers' needs as well. To attain that, a new systems and programs need to be applied in a scientific manner, and total quality environmental management (TQEM) is among these concepts. The research aimed to analyze the Relationship between (TQEM) Practices and its effect on Flexible Manufacturing in Badush factory. The research sample includes managers and head of divisions at top, middle and front line management levels which were (27) working in Badush factory. To achieve the objectives of the study, the descriptive anal
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The electoral poster is the most important means and methods of the electoral campaign because of its advantages and capabilities if it is organized properly. It is an intensive propaganda message with psychological figures and semiotic connotations belonging to sub-culture. Its construction depends on a group of elements (logo, photo symbols, color and picture) and their consistency is varying from one to another. Posters must be committed the determinants of attraction, excitement, simplicity and clarity. They are working according to the following base: (fixed audience X moved recipients) and walking towards (moving X moving) due to the technical development of optical screens. These developments require double the force of the impact
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The objective of the study is to demonstrate the predictive ability is better between the logistic regression model and Linear Discriminant function using the original data first and then the Home vehicles to reduce the dimensions of the variables for data and socio-economic survey of the family to the province of Baghdad in 2012 and included a sample of 615 observation with 13 variable, 12 of them is an explanatory variable and the depended variable is number of workers and the unemployed.
Was conducted to compare the two methods above and it became clear by comparing the logistic regression model best of a Linear Discriminant function written
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The current research aims to build a training program for chemistry teachers based on the knowledge economy and its impact on the productive thinking of their students. To achieve the objectives of the research, the following hypothesis was formulated:
There is no statistically significant difference at (0.05) level of significance between the average grades of the students participating in the training program according to the knowledge economy and the average grades of the students who did not participate in the training program in the test of productive thinking. The study sample consisted of (288) second intermediate grade students divided into (152) for the control group
... Show MoreThe study aims at identifying the morphological and psycho-socio-economic qualities wished to be in a life partner among a sample of Palestinian youth. The total sample was (231) and consisted of (83) male and (148) female students. Each student presented a detailed report on the qualities he/she wished to be in life partner. The study used the descriptive approach and content analysis method. The validity and stability of the analysis were calculated. The results showed eight qualities in both groups: physical, psychological, emotional, social, intellectual, familial, economic and academic. Female students were found to have more variations than male students in terms of the qualities preferable in the life partner. Male students
... Show MoreBackground:sThe aims of this study were to evaluate and compare the ability of three different techniques to obdurate simulated lateral canals, evaluate the effect of the main canal curvature on obturation of lateral canals and compare the gutta-percha penetration between coronal and apical lateral canals. Materials and methods: Resin blocks with 30 straight and 30 curved were used in this study. Each canal has two parallel lateral canals. The main canal has 0.3 mm apical diameter and 0.04 taper. The canals were divided into six groups according to canal curvature and obturation techniques used (n=10): Groups C1 and C2: straight and curved canals obturated with continuous wave technique using E&Q masterTM system. Groups O1 and O2: straight
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The study conducted on the compositions of epiphytic diatoms on three taxa of aquatic plants were selected (Phragmites australis Trin ex stand , Ceratophyllum demersum L. and Typha domengensis Pers) in three sites within Al-Auda Marsh, from autumn 2013 to summer 2014 . The study was measured physical and chemical factors of all the study sites, such as: air temperature, power of hydrogen (pH), electrical conductivity (EC), salinity (S‰), total hardness(TH), dissolved oxygen (DO), and plant nutrient. The results showed that water of marsh was oxygenated and it was very hard. A total of 111 taxa of phytoplankton were identified, which belonged to 13 families and 26 genus (one family and two genus of centric diatoms, 12 families and 26 ge
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الانهار اصبحت مشبعة بثاني اوكسيد الكربون بشكل عالي وبذلك فهي تلعب دور مهم في كميات الكربون العالمية. لزيادة فهمنا حول مصادر الكربون المتوفرة في النظم البيئية النهرية، تم اجراء هذه الدراسة حول تأثير الكربون العضوي المذاب والحرارة (العوامل الرئيسية لتغير المناخ) كمحركات رئيسية لوفرة ثاني اوكسيد الكربون في الانهار. تم جمع العينات من خمسة واربعون موقع في ثلاثة اجزاء رئيسية لنهر دجلة داخل مدينة بغداد خلال فص
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