Hei!
Ikke alle vet at jeg har en onkel Joel som migrerte til USA på 1800-tallet. I forbindelse med den siste vinterdagen, som feires kraftig blant troll, fikk jeg et brev fra onkelen min. I konvolutten var det en liste med ordtak på engelsk som en presang. Denne listen hjalp meg mye i løpet av forberedelsen min til den amerikanske testen (TOEFL). Hvem vet om jeg dukker opp i overskuelig framtid somewhere in NYC 🙂
Denne listen med ordtak skal klistres her. Enjoy!
Hilsen Brutus
- You can say that again
- Bring an a-game
- First things first
- Better safe than sorry
- Behind mountains, more mountains
- You can lead the horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink
- Trying is being
- Different strokes for different folks
- Do not put all your eggs in one basket
- The old as the hills
- When you hear hoofbeats think of horses, not zebras
- The horse is out of the barn
- Let the genie out of the bottle
- Beat the dead horse, (flogging a dead horse)
- Be a fly on the wall
- Set a bar hight
- You can’t have your cake and eat it too
- Same sort of ball park
- Be in between a rock and a hard place
- A whole new ball game
- Where there is a wish, there is a way
- Put the cart before the horse
- Keep an eye on smth
- At the end of the day (what is really matter)
- Be a night owl
- Put smb into the pigeonhole
- Going Dutch
- Burry the hatchet
- Like a moth to the flame
- Cost an arm and a leg
- Have a lightning in the bottle
- A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
- A two way street
- Regularity is a king
- Butterfingers
- Curiosity killed the cat
- Be Jack of all trades
- Keep smb in the loop
- Blow smth out proportion
- Close a stable door after the horse has bolted
- Drop the ball
- Set in stone
- Just to set the record straight
- Have a soft spot for smth
- Put on a brave face
- It is raining witches
- Like a duck takes to water
- Be on the same page
- Not my cup of tea
- The tip of an iceberg
- Like looking for a needle in a haystack
- With a naked eye
- Be the change that you want to see
- It is nothing to write home about
- Do not make a mountain out of a molehill
- I cannot make heads or tails of this
- Take a back seat
- Blue memories
- Elbow room
- Be a third wheel
- An elephant never forgets
- Put a kibosh on smth
- Be in someones chair
- If you mess something up, it makes you stronger
- Have hands-on approach
- It is not across the board
- It takes two to tango
- Give it the old college try
- Be down to Earth
- Open a big can of warms
- Living the life of Riley
- Move heaven and earth
- Time to hit the hay
- I am middle of the road
- Burying the head in the sand
- Turn a blind eye to smth
- Every cloud has a silver lining
- Stick in the mud
- Burn bridges
- Go back to the drawing board
- It might get really bad, before it gets better
- From the get-go
- An eye opener
- to keep on one’s toes
- You can’t learn to run before you learn to walk
- Straddle the fence
- to be a glass-half-full person
- to see the world from someones seat
- When two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled the most
- Life is a team work
- Have egg on your face
- Add fuel to the fire
- Barking up the wrong tree
- Give smb a cold shoulder
- Hit the books
- Let sleeping dogs lie
- Miss the boat
- Pigs might fly
- Like a fart in the wind
- Whatever floats your boat
- You cannot fight city hall
- Cute as a button
- On the same umbrella
- Apples and oranges
- A silver bullet
- Bite the bullet
- Pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps
- Comparing apples to apples
- In your backyard
- Being a wallflower
- Dog-eat-dog world
- Tongue in cheek
- Clear as mud
- It is just a bump in the road
- Build on the shifting stands
- A sob story
- A zero-sum game
- Play coy
- Break the glass ceiling
- Throw (someone) under the bus
- Let hair down
- A kitchen sink approach
- Go bananas
- Wheelhouse
- Stuck on the hamster wheel
- Have someone is in your corner
- Any port in a storm
- In the grand scheme of things
- For x, w, z reasons
- Coin a phrase
- Pick up the tab
- No rhyme or reason for smth
- A little goes a long way
- Get your feet under the table
- A blessing in disguise
- Be out of the woods
- Burn the midnight oil
- Know the drill
- A ballpark figure
- A chin music
- In a New-York minute
- To the best of my knowledge
- Go on your merry way
- It is not over till the fat lady sings
- It is all Greek to me
- It won’t fly
- Around the clock
- Day in, day out
- That ship has sailed
- It will be a cold day in July
- Rings a bell
- What goes around, comes around
- There is no such things as a free lunch
- Screaming into void
- Light at the end of the tunnel
- Shoot the breeze
- As American, as apple pie
- Behind the times
- Be all and End all
- Catch 22
- Spike the football
- Beyond a shadow of doubt
- That is all well and good
- A world of difference (between)
- Yawning gap/gulf/chasm (between something)
- Sugar-coat
- Eat nails for breakfast
- A stepping stone
- A wiggle room
- Be off the wall
- Get down off the high horse
- Hobby horse
- be off around the edges
- Necessity is the mother of all invention
- Meet each other half way
-
Upset the applecart
-
Golden opportunity
- Duck and cover
- Buck stops here
- Passing the buck
- In the heat of the moment
- Challenging the status quo
- You catch more flies with honey
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For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979), Chapter 23.