BootsnAll Travel Community

I am still unable to translate:

"You can not have your cake and eat it to"
"What the heck"
"My work is cut out for me"

Any other sayings you have come across that you can't figure out.

"by the way"

"Yeah, right." (Two positives = a negative)

"Love means never having to say you're sorry." (I must not understand what this phrase really means, because if I take it at face value it's just an utter lie.)

Are you trying to find an equivalent phrase in another language? Or looking for figurative or literal meaning in English?

Heck is an euphemism for hell. What the hell (what in tarnation or what the heck, shit, fuck, etc.) is an interjection to express either apathy/carelessness/whatever-ness (what the hell do i care?; oh, what the hell. let's go.) or surprise/irritation (wtf are you doing?)

Sarcasm changes the literal positive meaning of "Yeah, right" to express disbelief or doubt (negative).

From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Have my work cut out for me:

quote:

57. cut out. a. trans. To cut so as to take out; to excise, extract, or extirpate by cutting (something material). Freq. fig. in recent colloq. use: to stop doing or using (something); to leave off, do without, omit, drop: esp. in imper. phr. cut it out. ...
l. fig. To plan; to prepare (work to be done). Phr. to have (all) one's work cut out: see WORK n. 30.

30. to cut out work for a person: to prepare work to be done by him, to give him something to do; now only to have (all) one's work cut out (for one) (colloq.): to have enough, or as much as one can manage, to do.

(from oxford dict. of idioms):
have your work cut out be faced with a hard task.

By the way:

quote:

12. a. In passing along: said of incidents happening on a journey, etc.; chiefly in phr. by the way.
b. Hence fig. by the way, by the by: (a) in passing, incidentally, as a chance idea in speech or writing; (b) ellipt., omitting words like ‘it may be remarked’. See BY n.2, WAY.[

Have one's cake and eat it too (from oxford dictionary of proverbs):

quote:

You cannot consume or spend something and still keep possession of it: once the cake is eaten, it is gone. The positions of have and eat are often reversed.

Love mean's never having to say you're sorry is apparently from Erich Segal's Love Story, but I've never read the story nor seen the film.

I have the opposite problem...sometimes I remember the meaning but can't recall the words. I've, um, dedicated another thread to that.

Anyway, a few that had me stumpted recently:

And what am I, chopped liver? (For a while I was wondering if it was sour grapes. No.)

That's par for (the?) course.

From a philosophy book...it's interesting that this (not remembering a word) could imply that contrary to what we kind of assume, we don't actually think in words. Or it could just mean I have early memory loss.

I had a student write an interesting one the other day:
"jumping the broom."

I assumed she had literally translated it from her first language as I'd never heard it before. As it turns out it actually is an English expression.

quote:

Originally posted by KateL57:

That's par for the course.

This is a golfing reference, with par being the expected score, so par for the course means that what is expected.

The word par come from Latin and means equal.

quote:

Originally posted by KateL57:


And what am I, chopped liver?

I did a bit of research on this one, and apparently it's a Jewish American expression used to express frustration at being ignored. It comes from the fact that chopped liver is a side dish, never the main course.

could jump the broom be jump the gun? esl-guessing skills, you know.

I didn't explain myself well before - I definitely know the meaning (the figurative one)of par for the course and chopped liver, and I had that meaning in my mind ... but I couldn't think of the words... "what am I, sour grapes?...no that's not it..." I had to check wikipedia to make sure chopped liver was right.

I like the chopped liver story - it's interesting to know how/why it came to be.

Jumping the broom:

http://www.weddingsbylance.com/ceremonies/jumping-the-broom.html

Ah, I love the internet!!!

Not to be confused with "Jumping the shark"

there is a teacher at my school who is rather unique, but when she gets excited or when she is surprised at something, she'll say "hot dog!" (like, "hot dog, it's cold outside.")

we've tried to explain it to the esl and foreign exchange students, but it hasn't worked so well. though a few have found it hilarious and now use it all the time, no matter the situation.