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.
Traditional nursing interventions for children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) often lack active engagement and show limited improvement in motor function. Play interventions involving manipulative activities may better support motor skill development. Objectives: To evaluate the effect of structured play-based nursing interventions on hand motor skills in children with cerebral palsy. Methods: A quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test design with a control group was used. The study was conducted at the Paediatric Welfare Hospital in Baghdad from November 25, 2024, to February 13, 2025. A non-probability sample of 79 children was identified based on the study criteria; of these, 64 children met the eligibility criteria and agreed to particip
... Show MoreBackground: The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the apical microleakage around retrograde cavities prepared with ultrasonic technique and filled with (Biodentineâ„¢) Materials and methods: 40 extracted single rooted human permanent maxillary teeth with mature apices were selected. The roots were prepared chemo-mechanically using k-files with crown-down technique and then obturated with lateral condensation gutta-percha technique. Teeth were divided into four main groups according to the cavity preparation method either manual or ultrasonic technique: Group A (n=10): A class I retrograde cavity at root end was prepared with traditional handpeice equipped and placement of Biodentine with manual condensation. Group B (n=10):
... Show MoreBackground: The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the apical microleakage around retrograde cavities prepared with ultrasonic technique and filled with (Biodentineâ„¢) Materials and methods: 40 extracted single rooted human permanent maxillary teeth with mature apices were selected. The roots were prepared chemo-mechanically using k-files with crown-down technique and then obturated with lateral condensation gutta-percha technique. Teeth were divided into four main groups according to the cavity preparation method either manual or ultrasonic technique: Group A (n=10): A class I retrograde cavity at root end was prepared with traditional handpeice equipped and placement of Biodentine with manual condensation. Group B (n=10):
... Show MorePricing has an important position among the elements of marketing mixture (4ps) as it represents revenues that in turn represent one of the important pillars' for resources affecting on organizations sustainability and development , and the failure in determining prices and their strategies has a dangerous effect on the organizations reality and future as a whole . from this point, this is what from the focus of the research problem,which centered on how to get companies to critical price that satisfies customers and achieve corporate objectives.
... Show MoreBackground: The rising rate of cesarean deliveries has generated concern about whether all procedures are medically justified. Limited data exist on how well first-time mothers understand the indications for their cesarean section in Iraq. Objective: To assess maternal knowledge of the medical reasons for the first cesarean delivery and its relationship with sociodemographic, obstetric, and neonatal characteristics. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from October to December 2023 among 158 Iraqi women who underwent their first cesarean delivery. Data were collected using a structured, self-administered online questionnaire that assessed demographic, obstetric, and knowledge-related factors. Results: Less than half of the
... Show MoreThe results of this study showed that the tongue of the adult Iraqi domestic cat is divided into three regions of apex, body and root. The dorsal surface of all regions possesses five types of lingual papillae, two mechanical which are filiform and cylindrical papillae, while the other three types are taste papillae which are foliate, fungiform and circumvallate papillae, while these papillae are absent on its ventral surface. The histological examination of all tongue areas revealed that it consisted of three tunica, the tunica mucosa and the tunica submucosa (the lamina propria) and the tunica muscularis. The tunica mucosa consisted of the epithelial lining, which is a stratified squamous epithelial tissue covering the lingual papillae, a
... Show MoreThe rapid reality of events in the information era, and the enormous pressure of forces market, competition, permanent movement of the markets and consumers and the large development unprecedented of technology in all areas make a lot of organizations find it difficult to keep up with this rapid developments .Here was the role of strategic vigilance closer organization to their environment ,and play an active role in providing the necessary information to make decisions and insurance companies are not far from those changes .On this basis the researcher offered studied(Over the awareness of managers of insurance companies for strategic vigilance).Choosing sample of 35 managers in the National Insurance Company to test th
... Show MoreThe effect of adding different volume of coumarin dye (5, 15, 25 and 35) ml on optical properties of Poly (Methyl Meth Acrylate) was studied. Films of pure PMMA and PMMA with different volume of coumarin dye (5, 15, 25 and 35) ml were prepared using the casting technique. Transmission and absorption of the films were measured by using UV-VIS spectrometer technique type (100 Conc), in order to assess the type of transmission which was found an indirect transition. An optical energy gap of pure PMMA is (4.95e v) and after adding coumarin with volume (25, 35) ml, the energy gap for PMMA decrease by (0.05) compere to pure PMMA films and addition energy gap appear equal to (4.1 e v). It was found that the absorption coefficient, extinction coeff
... Show MoreThe aim of this study is to develop the science textbook for the 1st intermediate grade by analyzing it according to life skills. Its core areas were mental skills, environmental skills, and health skills. The analysis tool was used after verifying its validity and stability in analyzing the science textbook for the 1st intermediate grade, and the results of the study resulted in the inclusion of mental skills on a high percentage of repetitions, while we find that this percentage is low in the inclusion of environmental and health skills. The study recommended the importance of achieving balance and justice in including skills in the science textbook for the 1st intermediate grade, by emphasizing the environmental and health skills by incr
... Show MoreThe proton-neutron interacting boson model (IBM-2) has been used to make a schematic study of the Ruthenium ( ) isotopes of mass region around with and . For each isotope of the values of the IBM-2 Hamiltonian parameters, which yield an acceptable results for excitation energies in comparison with those of experimental data, have been determined. Fixed values of the effective charges ( ) and of the proton and neutron g factors ( and ) have been chosen for all isotopes under study. The calculated electric quadrupole moments of state, transitions, the magnetic dipole moments transitions and mixing ratios are in reasonable agreement with the experimental data.
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