By Analogies, Idioms

"explain about the birds and the bees" is the English idiom for explaining human sexuality to young people by analogy with sexuality in non-human species. It is a way of avoiding direct references in the discussion of what is an embarrassing topic for many. The hope is that the young person...

Hela, I can't speak for other people! I don't know why they would use present (subj) instead of past! Maybe the idiom itself should be considered as only weakly governing the following verb, similar to "if". Recall that "would rather" has a sort of double identity: It is an idiom for...

I don't think the "opportunity" meaning of "to get to do something" enters into this question, but rather "I've got to do something" meaning "I have to do something". I think that maybe only the British use the past tense of "I've got to do it": "I had got to do it" = "I had to do it". And...

Is this a new treatment for Tourettes? I'm afraid I can't think of a single snappy phrase that sums up this notion - I don't think here is an idiom that covers it. If you want something colourful, you could try a tennis analogy "X slapped Y swiftly on his left cheek, then followed through with...

Hello all I'd agree with Guest that this = 'chit(ty)' as in 'voucher'; so here 'a clean chit' = 'a clean bill of health', as AnneC suggests. It's not an idiom in BrE, as far as I know, but would be understandable by analogy. MrP