Script from the year 2017 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 91.1, language: English, abstract: An 'Idiom' is an expression in the usage of a language that has a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements; for example "raining cats and dogs" is an expression that is used to convey the meaning of "raining heavily", but this meaning most of the time cannot be derived from the denotative meaning of the single words that constitute the whole expression. Moreover, an idiom can be looked at as a combination of words whose meaning can be either transparent (can be easily worked out of the literal meaning of the individual words) or opaque (there is no resemblance between the meaning of the individual words and the meaning of the idiom itself). Consider the following examples of transparent idioms that are reasonably obvious: 1. 'Throw someone to the lions' means 'intentionally to put someone in a difficult position', as in: All the commanders were responsible for the tragedies in their last operation, but they threw that junior officer to the lions when they asked him to address the journalists on the reasons of defeat. Idioms like 'sell someone down the river' and 'kick the bucket' are examples of the opaque: 1. Understanding the words of the expression 'sell someone down the river', for instance, will not help you recognize that it actually means 'to betray, or be disloyal to', as in: The kidnapper who was caught by the police refused to sell his associates down the river. Thus, having such idioms in one book and learning their meaning would be absolutely of a significant help. Interestingly, some English idioms are similar to expressions in other languages, which makes it easy for the learner to figure out their meaning, as in 'hold one's horses' which means 'to stop someone or something, or to make them calm', for example: Hold your horses, I said to my wife when she started packing her lu
About the Author: Awni Shati Mohammad Etaywe is a Full Member of the Jordanian Association of Translators and Applied Linguists (JATAL), which is a member of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA). He holds a Master Degree of Arts in Applied Linguistics from Jordan University of Science and Technology (with plus grande distinction). In 2002, he was awarded King Abdullah II Award for the top cadet in English Language and Military Science department, Mu'tah University/Military Branch, Jordan. In 2004, he was commissioned from the UK Royal Military Academy Sandhurst where he was introduced to the world of leadership and management, and was awarded the Commandant's War Studies Paper award for the best overseas writing-cadet. He has several diplomas and certificates in management, including: NGO and Volunteer Work Management (with distinction) from the German-Jordanian University; HR Management certificate from DRMI, Navy Postgraduate School, Monterey, California; Project management (from PMI JO); Sustainable Business-Managing the Triple Bottom Line from Alison, Ireland. Mr. Etaywe has served as a head of translation division at Jordan Armed Forces-Center for Studies and Lessons Learned, and as a linguist and liaison officer at the United Nations Stabilization Mission in DRC (MONUSCO), and the United Nations Mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia (UNMEE). He has received a number of medals and awards from the United Nations, Jordan Armed Forces, and the German-Jordanian University. As a linguist, he has been recently recognized by the US Center for Army Lessons Learned (US CALL) for his standard of excellence and professionalism in support of the multinational Exercise Eager Lion. He is the co-author of Lessons Learned Précis (in Arabic), the author of Leadership Précis: Situational and Adaptive Leadership (in Arabic), Fundamental English Grammar Review, Petra Treasury of Essential Idioms and Multi-part Verbs (English-Arabic), and Step by Step into TOEFL-like National Exam. He is the translator of the "US Kauffman Foundation's Fast-Trac New Venture Manual" and the co-translator of the "US Kauffman Foundation's Fast-Trac Tech-Entrepreneur Manual". His fields of interest include Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics, forensic linguistics and Discourse Analysis.