ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: eat your heart out

Grammar Geek — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 01:04:47 GMT

It's another way to say "To your heart's content."

Re: eat your heart out

New2grammar — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:45:33 GMT

My apologies. I chose the wrong word and probably it caused the misunderstanding. I shouldn't have picked the word 'binge'. I needed a word to describe "eat as much as you like/can until you can't take no more." and I thought binge was the right choice.

Delmobile, correct me if I'm wrong. You may have heard of "eat your heart out' but the meaning is not "binge", am I right? If so, how would you interpret it?

Re: eat your heart out

MrPedantic — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:17:39 GMT

Not that I know of. (But I'm afraid there are some very strange people within the borders of our four nations; and some of them will say almost anything to get a mention in the British National Corpus.)

MrP

Re: eat your heart out

New2grammar — Sat, 31 May 2008 23:21:47 GMT

Is the binge eating usage British? Anyone?

Re: eat your heart out

Delmobile — Sat, 31 May 2008 23:14:01 GMT

I've never heard "eat your heart out" used to refer to binge eating. Only for jealousy.

Re: eat your heart out

New2grammar — Sat, 31 May 2008 21:19:45 GMT

Thank you, Mr. P!

Re: eat your heart out

MrPedantic — Sat, 31 May 2008 21:09:48 GMT

I think you have it, N2G.

1. Eat your heart out, X!

— X, who is a specialist in this field, would nonetheless "eat his heart out with jealousy", were he to witness my performance.

2. She was X-ing her heart out.

— She was X-ing passionately / wholeheartedly / to the fullest extent of her powers.

MrP

Re: eat your heart out

New2grammar — Sat, 31 May 2008 20:06:43 GMT

Thanks, MH. So, you do agree that eat your heart out has two different meanings, one is related to jealousy and the other binge?

Re: eat your heart out

Marius Hancu — Sat, 31 May 2008 18:47:20 GMT

See:

set one's heart on

http://www.answers.com/topic/set-one-s-heart-on

and other idioms with heart at the above site

Re: eat your heart out

Marius Hancu — Sat, 31 May 2008 18:43:59 GMT

Yes, it's OK:

<> http://books.google.com/books?as_q=&num=10&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=her+heart+out&as_oq=&as_eq=eat+eating&as_libcat=0&as_brr=0&lr=&as_vt=&as_auth=&as_pub=&as_sub=&as_drrb=c&as_miny=&as_maxy=&as_isbn=

eat your heart out

New2grammar — Sat, 31 May 2008 18:31:03 GMT

I always hear "eat your heart out" and today I heard, "campaign her heart out". Is it possible to use "heart out" informally to mean "a lot/aggresively".

Oh no. I just looked up the expression "eat yor heart out" and it means

something that you say which means that you or someone you know can do something better than a person who is famous for doing that thing. I'm taking singing lessons. Celine Dion, eat your heart out!

I thought it meant eat as much as you like/can until you can't take no more. :)

Help!

Thanks in advance!