English for foreigners

I have lessons in German from a teacher who speaks very good English, but is sometimes surprised - and amused - by expressions that seem to her very English and that aren't reflected in an equivalent in German - or probably any other language. She suggested that I make a list of some of them. This is my list, which has in fact been supplemented by friends who saw an earlier version. Obviously, it's really for non-native English speakers, but some natives have found it amusing, so I'm putting it on the website. Additions welcome! I may also keep thinking of others. I should add that I try not to include proverbs, sayings and the like. Also, humour is at a premium - as in "brass monkeys" and "curates' eggs".

Those marked with an asterisk aren’t much heard nowadays

Don’t hold your breath - it may never happen

Talk of the Devil - if someone you’re talking about turns up unexpectedly

Money for old rope - easily earned money

Take a rain-check - to postpone something (originally from the US)

*A turn-up for the book - an unexpected benefit

*Mind your Ps and Qs - be careful to be polite

Shooting yourself in the foot - doing youself harm

*Like the curate’s egg - partly gone bad (see Note below)

The elephant in the room - something no one wants to talk about (see Note below)

Costs an arm and a leg - very expensive

Raining cats and dogs/raining stair-rods - heavy rain

Knee-high to a grasshopper - short (as in height)

*Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark - missing the main point

Kick it into touch/put it on the back burne/hit it into the long grass - delay dealing with something

To get it off your chest - to say something after saving it up

We hit it off - get on well

Doesn’t stack up - doesn’t make sense

Long in the tooth; seen better days - old

Easy on the eye; eye-candy - beautiful (girl)

Six o’ one, half a dozen o’ the other - much the same

To die for - very good

On your bucket list - things you want to do or see

On the slippery slope - leading to disaster

Throw the baby out with the bathwater - do harm when trying to do good

Over the moon - very pleased

You can cry for the moon - it’s impossible

*It’s Hobson’s choice - there’s no choice (see Note below)

That’s a red herring - irrelevant, meant to confuse

That hits the nail on the head - exactly correct

A needle in a haystack - impossible to find

All meaning ”very stupid”: round the bend; lost his marbles; off his rocker; mad as a March hare; mad as a hatter; out to lunch; thick as mince; one sandwich short of a picnic

Go off the handle - lose temper

Take the Mickey out of someone - tease

*A pretty kettle of fish - a muddle

A different kettle of fish - something quite different

Taking no prisoners - being ruthless

Pull up your socks - do better

Fell off the back of a lorry - stolen

Between a rock and a hard place - in an impossible situation (originally US)

A zero-sum game - a situation where whatever the winner gains the loser loses (from Game Theory)

*One over the eight - drunk

Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs - saying the obvious

The cat’s whiskers or, more vulgarly, the dog’s bollocks - excellent

*Being a dog in the manger - being mean

There are more ways of skinning the cat - more alternatives

To take someone down a peg - to lower someone’s pride

The sun is over the yardarm - time for a drink

To have skin in the game - to have a financial interest in a question

To go Dutch - each to pay his own way

To go on a bender - to get drunk

A half-full/half-empty person - an optimist/pessimist

When pigs fly - never

Is the Pope a Catholic? - that’s obvious

Must see the colour of his money - see proof he can pay

A chip on his shoulder - a perpetual grievance

To get it in the neck - severely criticised

To make heavy weather/ to make a mountain out of a molehill - to overcomplicate

*The man on the Clapham omnibus - (legal-speak, originally) ordinary man

Dressed up to the nines - very smart

Spot on - Quite correct

Break a leg! - (curiously) Good luck!

Read the Riot Act - give a serious warning (see the Note below)

Don’t beat around the bush - get to the point

In spitting distance - nearby

*Between you, me and the gatepost - confidentially

The salt of the earth - good person

On his uppers - impoverished

To get away with it - to avoid a penalty or criticism

Put that in your pipe and smoke it - when stating an unwelcome fact

Not seeing the wood for the trees - concentrating on detail, missing the main point

He bats for the other side - gay

He’s all gong and no dinner - all talk without follow-up

A chip off the old block - like his father

Singing from the same hymn sheet - being in agreement

Playing away - an illicit affair

Across the pond - the other side of the Atlantic

Be my guest - Yes, when asked a favour

Double Dutch - unintelligible

Also - it’s all Greek to me

Given the old heave-ho - sacked from a job

On the money - quite right

Hair of the dog - (see Note below)

Do a runner - leave without paying

Give a hostage to fortune - do or say something that will give problems later

Knickers in a twist - in a muddle

Cut your nose off to spite your face - angrily reacting in a way that is self-destructive

Freeze the balls off a brass monkey - very cold (see Note below)

There’ll be the Devil to pay - there’ll be trouble

Talking the hind leg off a donkey - talking too much

Sure as eggs is eggs - it’s certain

You’re a brick - very kind

Thick as thieves - close friends

Having kittens - very worried

Pull the other one - don’t believe you

Birthday suit - naked

A can o’ worms - trouble (similar to “opening Pandora’s box”)

Dicing with death - taking a big risk

Playing the Devil’s advocate - putting an alternative view

Put a sock in it - shut up!

Going to hell in a handcart - heading for disaster

Steady, the Buffs - keep calm (see Note below)

Baker’s dozen - 13

Builder’s - (of tea) regular Indian, rather than anything more exotic

By the skin of one’s teeth - only just (see Note below)

Cock and bull story - incredible

Sticky wicket - difficult conditions (from cricket)

Hook, line and sinker - completely (as in believing something)

All meaning “finally” - at the end of the day; when all is said and done; when push comes to shove; when worse comes to the worst.

Won’t set the Thames on fire - won’t impress

Bob’s your uncle - (see Note below)

Slang expressions:

Money - dough, dosh, wonga, moolah, bread

A pound/pounds - quid, spondulicks, *jimmy o’goblins

1,000 pounds - a grand

*2,000 pounds - an Archer (see Note)

Million pounds - a bar

Police - copper, bobby, fuzz, the law, rozzers and, in criminal-lingo, the filth

Prison - jug, chokey, clink, the slammer

To sell - to flog

To die - to snuff it, fall off the twig, kick the bucket, push up the daisies, croak

A doctor - a quack

A journalist - a hack

A client/customer - a punter (literally, a betting man)

Food - grub, nosh

Drink - booze, hooch, a snifter

Have sex - shag, screw, get a leg over, a bit of “How’s your father?”

Girl - bird, chick, (US) broad

Man - bloke, guy, type, character, hero

Rhyming slang is a form of slang originally used by Cockneys in the East End of London. It only survives in a few examples, some of which people wouldn’t realise were originally rhyming slang. One is the phrase “Use your loaf”, meaning “use your head”. The origin is in the rhyme “head” for ”loaf of bread”, with typically the last words left out. Similarly “Let’s have a butchers” meaning “Let’s have a look”. Here are some examples that are still sometimes used:

Butchers - look, from “butcher’s hook”

Loaf - head, from “loaf o’ bread”

Porkies - lies, from “pork pies”

*Titfer - hat, from “tit for tat”

Trouble - wife, from “trouble ‘n strife”

Apples - stairs, from “apples ‘n pears”

Barnet - hair, from “Barnet Fair”

Dog - phone, from “dog ‘n bone”

Dickey bird - word, as in “not a dickey bird”

Rhyming slang has also been used to disguise vulgar words. One of the best examples is “raspberry” for “fart” which most people won’t know was originally rhyming for “raspberry tart”. Another is “Berk” meaning a clottish man, where the rhyme is from “Berkshire Hunt”, the rhyme being too vulgar for me to record! Similarly, “Hampton Wick” meaning “prick”, which is no longer in use except for the phrase “He gets on my wick” whose origins might be a surprise to people who use it nowadays. Another one which people wouldn’t normally think of as rhyming slang is “a load of old cobblers” meaning nonsense, rhyming slang for “cobbler’s awls” - balls.

NOTE on the Curate’s Egg

This goes back to an ancient cartoon in the now-defunct magazine Punch. In the cartoon, a timid curate was asked by his bishop whether he liked his egg. Frightened to say that it was bad, he replied that it was good in parts.

NOTE on the Elephant in the Room

The phrase is said to go back to a fable, The Inquisitive Man, written in 1814 by a Russian called Ivan Krylov. The hero is inquisitive about lots of things in a museum - but fails to spot an elephant! Dostoevsky referred to the fable, which maybe helped it to get well-known and may have caused the phrase to find its way into English and indeed other languages.

NOTE on the Riot Act

The phrase “read the Riot Act” goes back to an Act of Parliament, the Riot Act 1714, passed in the reign of George I, at a time when people were frightened of what seemed like an increase in rioting. The Act said that, if any group of 12 or more assembled illegally, the authorities (normally the local mayor) could order them to disperse by reading out the proclamation set out in the Act. (The Act was only repealed in 1967, to be later replaced by the Public Order Act 1986.)

NOTE on Hobson’s choice

Not much heard nowadays. Originally it referred to a man in Cambridge who traded horses in the early 17thcentury (near what’s now the Fitzwilliam Museum), who offered his customers a free choice - in theory - but always insisted that they took the one he selected.

NOTE on “Hair of the dog”

It’s short for “Hair of the dog that bit you” which goes back to the origin of the expression, namely the very ancient theory that if you’re bitten by a rabid dog, putting some hair of the dog on the wound helps to cure it. The expression is now used in English to describe having a drink to help with the effects of a hangover. There are variants in many other languages.

NOTE on an Archer

Jeffrey Archer (Lord Archer) was said to have paid £2,000 to a girlfriend on Waterloo Station, presumably to buy her silence.

 NOTE on the brass monkey

It’s certainly nothing to do with monkeys. There is a theory that the balls are cannonballs and that, on a warship, the monkey was a brass tray for holding them. When it got very cold, the brass contracted and the balls fell off. Almost certainly nonsense! But no one seems to have come up with a better guess.

NOTE on the Buffs

To get the original sense of the expression, you need the comma! The Buffs was the nickname of a regiment (the East Kent Regiment, since you ask). The phrase may have got into use because Kipling used it in a novel. It’s probably going out of use nowadays, though Alan Titchmarsh still uses it when talking about climate alarms!

NOTE on Skin of the Teeth

Originally, believe it or not, from the Book of Job. Job is saying how he only has skin and bones left and then, somewhat cryptically, that he still (just) has the skin around his teeth.

NOTE on Bob’s your Uncle

It means something like “well, that works” or just “sucess”. It relates, allegedly, to the fact that Arthur Balfour became Prime Minister after his uncle Robert, Marquess of Salisbury. "Ah well, Bob's your uncle!"