Skip to main content

Popular Idioms and Usages Part K

By VJ

Popular Idioms and Usages Part K

Here comes the Kth installment of the popular idioms series.

Katy bar the door: Be prepared for any trouble ahead.

Keep body and soul together: Survive in difficulty.

Keep in touch with: To remain in contact.

Keep pace with: To maintain level with. The NASA project kept pace with the one with CERN.

Keep schtum: Keep mum.

Keep your chin up: Be lighthearted even in difficult situations.

Keep your nose to the grindstone: Be extremely concentrated on the work at hand.

Keep your pecker up: Remain happy.

Keep your powder dry: Be ready at all times. It comes from the army, with allusion to the gunpowder.

Khyber pass: Arse. A cockney rhyming slang.

Kick the bucket: To die.

Kiss of death: Anything with highly disastrous effects.

Kit and caboodle: Bag and baggage or the complete paraphernalia.

Knee jerk reaction: Automatic reaction to something.

A knock back: A reversal of fortune and disappointment.

Knock off: To finish the day’s chores.

Know the ropes: To study the working of a company.

Know which way the wind blows: To be prepared in fluctuating situations.

Hope you read the previous installments of this series. Please voice your doubts, if you have any, regarding these idioms and usages. And I always find time to answer them.

Copyright © Lenin Nair 2008
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated very strictly

Popular posts from this blog

Power of Short Sentences

By VJ
Post dedicated to Thomas Hardy (see History Today below). There are monster sentences like the one you encounter as the first paragraph of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens . One of my friends, whom I am getting equipped for his IELTS ( what is this? ), told me that the examination recommends long sentences. In writing classes also, I guess it’s longer sentences most tutors promote. But indubitably shorter sentences are more powerful . We will see why. Take a long sentence for instance: Tom Cruise, one of the finest actors in the whole world, is perhaps the most powerful celebrity to exist ever according to Time Magazine, but many people still dispute this fact and point out that there are more powerful and popular actors than Cruise, though they were unsuccessful in providing the total number of fans, who liked the films of those actors. This is a long sentence and it is very confusing . Though it has a logical construction and conveys a meaning, it falters in many occasions and seems ...
1 comment
Read more

Creative Writing: Crafting Characters With Emotional Appeal in Mind

By VJ
When you read the greatest fiction works ever, have you ever asked what was so compelling about them that you not only kept reading it, but you ended up reading all other major works of the writer? It may well be because the writer touched your emotional quotient quite a bit. Every reader has a unique taste . Some like to read suspense thrillers , some tender love stories, and some others dark horror and bloodshed stories . That’s why there are all sorts of genres out there. When a writer gives you what exactly you want, you will keep reading. Here we come to the emotional appeal. Character Imperfection Perfect characters may not always be the upshot of a writer’s deliberation. It may well be due to ignorance . Usually the upcoming writers take it for granted that if they create perfect characters, they will be able to garner a bigger audience . It is not true. You have to ask yourself what a character would do in a particular situation. Perfect characters—perfect gunmen, perfect...
1 comment
Read more

En Dash, Em Dash, and Hyphen

By VJ
We have three types of dashes in use: The hyphen, En Dash, and the Em Dash. In this post, we will see how to use them all correctly. Hyphen (-) The hyphen is the minus key in Windows-based keyboards. This is a widely used punctuation mark. Hyphen should not be mistaken for a dash . Dash is different and has different function than a hyphen. A hyphen is used to separate the words in a compound adjective, verb, or adverb. For instance: The T-rex has a movement-based vision. My blog is blogger-powered. John’s idea was pooh-poohed. The hyphen can be used generally for all kinds of wordbreaks . En Dash (–) En Dash gets its name from its length. It is one ‘N’ long (En is a typographical unit that is almost as wide as 'N'). En Dash is used to express a range of values or a distance: People of age 55–80 are more prone to hypertension. Delhi–Sidney flight was late by three hours. In MS Word, you can put an En Dash either from the menu, clicking Insert->Symbol or by the key-combinatio...
11 comments
Read more