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In the 19th century book, A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar, a proverb concerning magpies is recited: "A single magpie in spring, foul weather will bring". The book further explains that this superstition arises from the habits of pairs of magpies to forage together only when the weather is fine.
Do not judge a book by its cover; Do not keep a dog and bark yourself; Do not let the bastards grind you down; Do not let the grass grow beneath (one's) feet; Do not look a gift horse in the mouth; Do not make a mountain out of a mole hill; Do not meet troubles half-way; Do not put all your eggs in one basket; Do not put the cart before the horse
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).
"When Hell freezes over" [2] and "A cold day in Hell" [3] are based on the understanding that Hell is eternally an extremely hot place. The "Twelfth of Never" will never come to pass. [4] A song of the same name was written by Johnny Mathis in 1956. "On Tibb's Eve" refers to the saint's day of a saint who never existed. [5] "When two Sundays ...
This is a list of idioms that were recognizable to literate people in the late-19th century, and have become unfamiliar since. As the article list of idioms in the English language notes, a list of idioms can be useful, since the meaning of an idiom cannot be deduced by knowing the meaning of its constituent words. See that article for a fuller ...
The words, rules and tune for "Here we go gathering nuts in May" Here we are gathering nuts in May; by Elizabeth Adela Forbes The words and rules of the game were first quoted in the Folk-Lore Record, E. Carrington (1881), [2] followed by a similar description among the games for choosing partners by G.F. Northall (1882). [3]
Others are taken from such diverse sources as poetry, [33] [34] stories, [35] songs, commercials, advertisements, movies, literature, etc. [36] A number of the well known sayings of Jesus, Shakespeare, and others have become proverbs, though they were original at the time of their creation, and many of these sayings were not seen as proverbs ...
The words constituting idioms are stored as catenae in the lexicon, and as such, they are concrete units of syntax. The dependency grammar trees of a few sentences containing non-constituent idioms illustrate the point: The fixed words of the idiom (in orange) in each case are linked together by dependencies; they form a catena.