︎
In Brazil, if you want to talk about going someplace quickly and coming back in a flash, you can use the idiomatic Portuguese phrase ir num pé e voltar no outro, literally “to go on one foot and return on the other.” This is part of a...
Stacy from Denver, Colorado, is accustomed to using the idiomatic expression let alone in a particular way, mentioning two possibilities within a range and placing the more extreme possibility at the end of the statement, as in I can’t even...
An inkle is a colorful strip of linen woven on a miniature, portable loom. No one knows the term’s origin, but an old idiomatic expression, thick as inkle-weavers meant “extremely close or intimate.” The idea was that inkle looms...
Jesse in Gainesville, Florida, says that when he was growing up in Northern Minnesota, he often heard the expression “Oh, for…!”, as in “Oh, for cute!”, “Oh, for nice!”, or “Oh, for dumb!: This...
If you want to be a better writer, try skipping today’s bestsellers, and read one from the 1930’s instead. Or read something besides fiction in order to find your own metaphors and perspective. Plus, just because a city’s name...
A woman whose first language is Persian wonders about the word enduring. Can she describe the work of being a parent as enduring? While the phrase is grammatically correct, the expression enduring parenting is not good idiomatic English. This is...