執筆者 Modern English | 2013年11月20日 | Idioms
“How is he, doctor?” “Well, he has begun to recover, but he isn’t out of the woods yet.” “Out of the woods” means “out of danger” or “safe”. In fairy tales, the woods are a scary and dangerous place full of monsters. If someone has taken a step toward safety but is...
執筆者 Modern English | 2013年11月13日 | Idioms
“You have to help me. Ninjas are following me around everywhere!” “There’s no such thing as ninjas. It’s all in your head.” If something is all in your head, it doesn’t exist in reality. Sometimes we worry a lot about something that isn’t a problem because it isn’t...
執筆者 Modern English | 2013年11月06日 | Idioms
“I found a really good deal on a hotel for our trip this summer!” “Don’t you think you’re putting the cart before the horse? We haven’t even decided on dates yet.” Putting the cart before the horse is doing things in the wrong order, or focusing on a low priority task...
執筆者 Modern English | 2013年10月30日 | Idioms
“We had our roof repaired, and they really took us to the cleaners. Roofs are expensive!” Taking someone to the cleaners means charging them too much money. Do cleaners charge more money than other businesses? Maybe this idiom comes from another phrase, “to clean...
執筆者 Modern English | 2013年10月23日 | Idioms
“Get Jenkins to vote yes, and the rest of the council will fall like dominoes.” When the first domino falls, it causes all the other dominoes to fall too. We can compare some events to dominoes when one thing is enough to cause all the other things to happen....
執筆者 Modern English | 2013年10月16日 | Idioms
“Did your mother say you could go out today? I thought you had a lot of homework.” “Well, not in so many words, but she implied it!” When we talk about what someone said, we often rephrase it using different words. We especially like to shorten things so we don’t have...
