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Idiom Series #14: Break a Leg
Search online for the origin of break a leg and you’ll find a dozen confident answers. It comes from the man who shot Abraham Lincoln. It comes from a famous French…
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Idiom Series #13: Blow Off Some Steam
Omar has just finished three hours of final exams. He doesn’t want to talk, read or think. He grabs a basketball, heads to the court and shoots hoops for an hour.…
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Idiom Series #12: Bite the Bullet
You’ve probably seen the scene in a war movie. A wounded soldier lies on a table. There’s no medicine for the pain, so someone puts a bullet between his teeth and…
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Idiom Series #11: Bite Off More Than You Can Chew
Over the years I’ve heard many learners say something like this:
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Idiom Series #10: Better Late Than Never
Aisha has been waiting at the café for forty minutes. Her friend Leo finally rushes in, smiles, and says: “Better late than never, right?”
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Idiom Series #9: Beat Around the Bush
From around the year 1440 comes a long English poem, preserved in a single handwritten copy. In the middle of it is a line that, in modern spelling, reads: “Some beat…
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Idiom Series #8: Barking Up the Wrong Tree
It’s night in the woods of nineteenth-century America. A hunting dog has chased a raccoon, and now it stands under a tall tree, barking with total confidence. The hunter runs over,…
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Idiom Series #7: Bang for Your Buck
Here’s a surprise: one of the most common shopping phrases in American English became famous during arguments about nuclear weapons.
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Idiom Series #6: All Ears
Can a person really be “all ears”? Picture it for a second: no arms, no legs, just two giant ears waiting for news. It’s a funny image, and that’s exactly why…
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Idiom Series #5: Add Insult to Injury
Sam is standing at the bus stop in the rain. A car drives through a puddle and soaks his pants. Then, as he’s wiping off the mud, his bus pulls away…