Idioms worth knowing, the cultural sense behind them, and why two words with the same dictionary meaning can still feel completely different.
An idiom is the one part of a language you cannot work out from the words in it. That makes them the fastest way to sound natural — and the fastest way to sound odd, if you reach for one that doesn't fit the moment. These articles cover the idioms that earn their keep in everyday English, the cultural assumptions underneath them, and the finer question of how a word feels rather than what it means.
6 articles