Skip to main content

Popular Idioms and Usages Part N

Here is the Nth part of the popular idioms series.

1. Nail your colors to the mast: Show intention to hold on till the end.
2. Name and shame: Publication of the name of an antisocial.
3. Neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring: Not one thing or another.
4. Never never land: An Utopia promised instead of a real benefit.
5. New kid on the block: A new recruit or member in a group.
6. Nip in the bud: Foil something at its development stage itself.
7. No dice: A refusal to accept some proposal.
8. No names, no packdrill: Say nothing to avoid repercussions.
9. No room to swing a cat: A small space.
10. North and South: Mouth. Cockney rhyming slang.
11. Not playing with a full deck: Foolish
12. Not worth a plugged nickel: Completely worthless
13. Not worth a tinker’s dam: Worthless
14. Not worth the candle: Worthless

More of the idioms will be added to the list in the coming days. Please also read the previous versions of the series.

Here are some posts that may interest you:

Ten Tips to Write Great Content
Run-on Sentences and Comma Splices
Elliptical Constructions (Elliptical Clauses)

Copyright © Lenin Nair 2008

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

En Dash, Em Dash, and Hyphen

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...

Unethical Business Practices by Associated Content (AC)

Useful Resources Freelance job at Constant Content Freelance for a 6 figure income Get paid to write on the Internet 25 Ways to write for income on the Internet Work from home as a virtual assistant Freelance for fortune 500 companies Today’s Internet slogan is ‘Content is King’ . If you have well-written, keyword rich content, without grammatical errors, then you can rank very high on search engine results, thus making a lot of money. With this business idea, several companies have sprung up, and Associated Content (who call themselves, People’s Media Company) is one among them. Here, we will try to find answers to these questions: 1. What exactly is Associated Content (if you don’t already know this)? 2. Is it really worthwhile to work with them? 3. Why should you steer right clear of them? What is Associated Content (AC) Associated Content (AC) is a website, in which you can earn money submitting content (text, video, audio, or images) . Anyone from anywhere in the...

Power of Short Sentences

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 ...