1.What does 'He's wound up tighter than a drum' mean? It's a mixed metaphor/simile for tension, but it used to be quite popular. The coil springs which powered old fashioned toys were wound up with a key. We used to wind our

"He walked as fast as the undergrowth and snowdrifts would allow " What is the justification for the conditional in the second half of the sentence? Tough question. In some ways, it is not really a conditional, but an expression of

Sky is a big place - "flying solo" in such a big sky is difficult, don't feel ashamed to have failed.She's continuing his metaphor. One too many names - no, this sounds like he's added another name as author and she thinks

Ordinary language logic is not the same as mathematical logic. Consider the basic idea of equality. Jack was assigned to clean out the stables, but he was not the task. Note the measurement 'upward' from an assumed 'low'

"How are you going?" is an Australian colloquialism (although usually contracted to "how ya goin'?" or "how ya going?") It basically translates to "how are you travelling?" or "how are you

Thanks, everybody. Ray H., perhaps the author intended the mysterious metaphor to go unexplained, one more reminder of how Alaska is a "foreign country." I would think a real home-grown expression up there would have something to do with

He was drowned in the raging torrent. His speech was drowned by the rabble. His plea was drowned in/by the clatter of hooves. It seems possible to me that we're confusing "drowned" as a metaphor with " drowned out " as an

real is "not artificial". true is "not false". your true face takes face as metaphoric for character. It suggests that a person's character has been revealed to be other than what it appeared to be previously. The truth

It's an idiom and a metaphor. 'Letting out one's belt' is a metaphor for growing bigger. 'He needs to get some schooling under his belt.' Think of a child growing bigger through the school years, as if it was learning and

My real question is whether "in my tying to explain how can I..." here is an attributive or an adverbial? It doesn't seem to be clearly either attributive or adverbial to me -- although you may want to consider it adverbial as