Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Let’s Practice English Idioms! II

What’s the biggest obstacle in your journey of exploring English? It could be grammar, pronunciation, or huge amount of vocabulary that seems to be endless. Above all, idiomatic expressions that have hidden, figurative meanings. Without understanding the cultural background or conventional usage of idioms, one can hardly imagine what those words are supposed to mean.
Using the given list of idioms and your imagination, try to choose a proper expression to fill in the blank of each sentence below.

a. play hooky        b. inner circle                c. hack around
d. hit someone up with                e. salty      f. fat cat
g. floored  h. hump day          i. jazz up
j. wet blanket

1. Please don’t ask Jennifer to join our party tonight. She is such a  ______________________, and nobody will have a blast at the party with her there.
2. This is a super scoop about the scandal! No one but his ___________________ knows what happened.
3. I heard that Jason broke up with his girlfriend. To make matters worse, he got laid off at work. He feels terribly ______________ now.
4. I feel so exhausted on _________________ because I work to the bone from sunup to midnight in the middle of the week.
5. Well, I don’t quite like the dingy bathtub bottom and the dilapidated shower curtain. It’s time to __________________________ the bathroom.
6. It was nice chatting with you today! Please ________________________ soon again, alright?
7. When Robin was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he became totally __________________.
8. Be careful not to deal with your ___________________ clients who donate astronomical amount of money. Quite often times, they belong to a huge gangster or Mafia group.
9. The finals are in two days! Why don’t you just stop ________________________ and start reviewing?
10. Jordan got suspended at school because he had ______________________ more than 5 times in a month.

Clues to Solve:
play hooky: (verb) to skip school or work without leaving notice/ good excuses

inner circle: (noun) a group of people who fall in line under the leader or head of a particular group

hack around: (verb) to do nothing but diddle around or pass one's time idly with no definite purpose.

hit someone up: (verb) to stay in touch/ to contact someone

salty: (adjective) unpleasant/ lousy

fat cat: (noun) wealthy/ powerful person especially engaged in business or politics
              (containing negative connotations as the description for greedy, rich people who lead an easy life based upon the hard work of others)

floored: (adjective) the state of being emotionally drained or feeling nervous breakdown just like hitting the bottom because of something overwhelmingly hard to deal with(e.g., bad news/ accidents/ disasters etc) This adjective is normally associated with a NEGATIVE emotion.

Hump day: (noun) the middle of a week, which is Wednesday

jazz up: (verb) to make something more exciting or look fancier

wet blanket: (noun) (synonym: party pooper) somebody who ruins the excitement or joy of others

Answer Keys: 1. wet blanket       2. Inner circle         3. salty or floored          4. Hump days
5. jazz up         6. hit me up        7. Floored             8. fat cat          9. hacking around

10. played hooky

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