In Nouns^x, Idioms^x

40-dollar job. Note the hyphen. Nouns as adjectives are singular: 10-minute break, ten-dollar bill, seven-year itch fall into the wrong hands-- this is the idiomatic phrasal verb, which cannot be manipulated. none that I know of = None (of the e.g. players) that I know of. Not that I know...

I guess you don't get out much, Anon. Here is a sampling of respectable online sources. Doing a bit of Google research yourself will turn up many, many more.The American Heritage Dictionary: Grammarians have sometimes objected to the so-called double genitive construction, as in a friend of my...

"me" is not dropped after "with", no. Neither "me" nor any other similar personal pronoun is part of the idiom. With "get", "over with" means "finished". This idiom is used in circumstances where there is something undesirable or unpleasant about the task to be finished, and the idea is...

Ethanw wrote: Please advise, in the following sentence, why no article is needed for 'center stage' which seems to be a common noun: Agricultural issues take center stage at 3rd Congressional District Forum. My best explanation is that "take center stage" is simply an idiom, originating in...

It's the noun "good" in the sense of "a good thing", "something good". I usually hear it in combination with "some". There isn't much of a grammatical explanation in my opinion. It's simply an idiom "to do someone (some) good" = to be beneficial for (someone) = to be good (a good thing)...

I think your question will be better answered if you can give us some examples in context so that we have a sense of what you don't understand. From reading your question, I have no idea. Phrasel verbs, prepositions and idioms are completely different animal from each other. Based on my...

Hi, I have writeen two sentences that contain the above-mentioned phrases and want to know why the words that follow those phrases do not seem to have articles when they appear to be countable nouns. 1.A quail is a type of small bird which is often .... (Why not, a quail is a type of (a or...

Hi guys, Idioms are tricky. You often have to use the exact wording to avoid sounding odd or unintentionally funny. The idiom for this light-hearted expression is When I kick the bucket .... and not When I kick my bucket ... Best wishes, Clive

I don't think you can add a polite euphemism into this sentence with any conviction. Don't forget that 'heck' is just replacing 'h ell'. Now the only natural place to put a swear word in that situation is before the word tornado. And you don't use h elling or hecking. You'll have to imagine...

HSS wrote:If I knew what "passed for fair" and "which age turned more knowing and severe" mean, the fog would be gone. Is the "fair" part of the idiom "for fair" or is it that the "for" is part of the expression "passed for" and that the "fair" is a noun? Hello HSSI think "passed for fair" is an...