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.
This study aims to identify the anxiety pregnant women have of dying, in the light of some Demographic variables in Bethlehem (age, residence, and the mother's job). The descriptive method was used in this study. To achieve the study purposes, the researchers developed a questionnaire as a tool of study, which consisted of (19) paragraphs ,after been verified of its validity & stability.
The researchers distributed questionnaires, and then analyzed them. Results illustrated that the levels of anxiety pregnant women in Bethlehem had of dying was average, with a mean total score of (3.11), and with a standard deviation that had the total score of (0.476). Results also illustrated statistical differences in the pregn
... Show MoreBackground Bilateral cleft lip deformity is much more difficult to correct than unilateral cleft lip deformity. The complexity of the deformity and the sensitive relationships between the arrangement of the muscles and the characteristics of the external lip necessitate a comprehensive preoperative plan for management. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the repair of bilateral cleft lip using the Byrd modification of the traditional Millard and Manchester methods. A key component of this repair technique is focused on reconstruction of the central tubercle.
Methods Fourteen patients with mean age of 5.7 months presented with bilateral cleft lip deformity and were operated on using a mod
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Euphemisms are advantageous in people’s social life by turning sensitive into a more acceptable ones so that resentful feelings and embarrassment can be avoided. This study investigates the ability of Iraqi English learners in using euphemistic expressions, meanwhile, raising their awareness and the faculty members in English teaching faculties regarding the relevance of discussing the topics that demand euphemisation. This study comprised three stages: initial test, explicit instruction with activities, and a final test for the students’ development in this domain. A test has been distributed among 50 respondents, who are at the fourth year of their undergraduate study at the University of Babylon/ College of Basic Education. The lo
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The ground charge density distributions (CDD), elastic charge form factors and proton, charge, neutron, and matter root mean square (rms) radii for stable 40Ca and 48Ca have been calculated using single-particle radial wave functions of Woods-Saxon (WS) and harmonic-oscillator (HO) potentials. Different central potential depths are used for each subshell which is adjusted so as to reproduce the experimental single-nucleon binding energies. An excellent agreement between the calculated rms charge radii and experimental data are found for both nuclei using WS and HO potentials. The calculated proton rms radii for 40Ca are found to be in good agreement with experiment data using both WS and HO potentials while the results for 48Ca showed an ov
... Show MoreTo detect the amount of rifampicin in bulk and medicinal dosage formulations, an accurate and costeffective UV spectrophotometric technique has been developed using the area under the peak to estimate the presence of rifampicin. This range of wavelengths (300–356 nm) was chosen. The method showed linearity in the 2–22 μg/mL range, with R2 being2 0.9996. The developed method’s linearity, detection limit, quantification limit, precision, repeatability, and accuracy were all statistically and experimentally validated. The suggested methodology can be used for routine quality control analysis of rifampicin in pure form and in capsule dosage form, as demonstrated by the satisfactory recovery percentage results. This study explores the str
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NeighShrink is an efficient image denoising algorithm based on the discrete wavelet
transform (DWT). Its disadvantage is to use a suboptimal universal threshold and identical
neighbouring window size in all wavelet subbands. Dengwen and Wengang proposed an
improved method, which can determine an optimal threshold and neighbouring window size
for every subband by the Stein’s unbiased risk estimate (SURE). Its denoising performance is
considerably superior to NeighShrink and also outperforms SURE-LET, which is an up-todate
denoising algorithm based on the SURE. In this paper different wavelet transform
families are used with this improved method, the results show that Haar wavelet has the
lowest performance among
In this paper, nanofluid of TiO2/water of concentrations of 0.002% and 0.004% volume was used. This nanofluid was flowing through heat exchanger of shell and concentric double tubes with counter current flow to the hot oil. The thermal conductivity of nanofluid is enhanced with increasing concentrations of the TiO2, this increment was by 19% and 16.5% for 0.004% and 0.002% volume respectively relative to the base fluid (water). Also the heat transfer coefficient of the nanofluid is increased as Reynold's number and nanofluid concentrations increased too. The heat transfer coefficient is increased by 66% and 49% for 0.004% and 0.002% volume respectively relative to the base fluid. This study showed that the friction
... Show MoreThe composites were manufactured and study the effect of addition of filler (nanoparticles SiO2 treated with silane) at different weight ratios (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) %, on electrical, mechanical and thermal properties. Materials were mixed with each other using an ultrasound, and then pour the mixture into the molds to suit all measurements. The electrical characteristics were studied within a range of frequencies (50-1M) Hz at room temperature, where the best results were shown at the fill ratio (1%), and thermal properties at (X=3 %), the mechanical properties at the filler ratio (2%).
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