Reader Opinions
Nishant Sambyal – (in dire straits or need) October 31, 2020
I have a doubt. Consider the following statement :-
“When his political opponent countered him with by presenting the facts he had nothing to say”
Can this person be said to be in Dire Strait?
Please reply anyone.
Chenyi Zhu – (home is where the heart is) October 30, 2020
To the guy who posted on 8/6/2020, you are not very nice on the wording.
James F – (acid test) October 28, 2020
Reading some of the other thoughts I wanted to give a native speaker’s perspective. Speaking of “an” acid test sounds wrong to my ears, you almost always hear this idiom in a construction like “that will be _the_ acid test”.
An acid test (noun) is a famous example of a final, conclusive, indisputable test. Therefore you should only need one, by definition. So when using acid test (idiom) you’re going to talk about the (singular) acid test.
Also, “he was an acid test” sounds wrong to me too. I would saying “Convincing him would be the acid test”. An acid test isn’t a person, it’s something you perform, something you do, so it’s usually going to be a verb. Saying a person is the acid test to imply that their opinion is decisive or crucial makes sense, but the language hasn’t gone there to my knowledge, people haven’t used the idiom like that, so it sounds wrong.
Dean – (vice versa) October 27, 2020
I thought vice versa was an adverbial phrase, not an idiom?
Cindy Coburn – (ward off) October 27, 2020
Who in the hell wrote these sentence examples? There are examples of misogynistic thinking that perpetrate ongoing violence against women with subtle pricks. Example: crazy girls? unwanted text messages can come from unsolicited businesses. Why the attack on women? And that example is used after the man falls off his motorcycle? And the male goes to war and the women tries to remind the man to not forget his umbrella. It’s 2020. Language matters. You have an audience and a voice. Use your voice with some type of maturity and responsibility.
Gianna Bogan – (take with a grain of salt) October 26, 2020
It has been around for a long time.
Is a pinch of salt different from a grain of salt or different?
Elijah Manyuon Maluk Wal – (Punctuation) October 26, 2020
The person who need to be good in speaking and writing of English language must to observe the punctuation rules and usage of it in all his/her aspect.
Yoli – (dog tired) October 25, 2020
Can we say it is a phrasal compound?
Anonymous – (birds of a feather flock together) October 24, 2020
Birds of feather flock together :- they have something in common
Biffula – (mind your own beeswax) October 22, 2020
The smallpox story is utter nonsense.
