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The following hashtags are trending across South African Mastodon instances:

#southafrica
#libraries
#ev
#byd
#Wordle
#wordle1762
#English
#idioms
#quotes
#love

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Today I learned what the expression "whet your appetite" really means: to "whet" is to sharpen a blade on a whetstone. Hence, "whet your appetite" literally means "sharpen your appetite", which could be translated to "prepare" or "make ready".

#English #idioms

"This house comes complete with dry bar, wet bar, and a bar that is in an intermediary state between wet and dry so we call it a moist bar."

"Why do you say 'complete with?'"

"What?"

"You're intimating that all the houses that don't have a dry bar, a wet bar and a moist bar are incomplete."

"It's just a way of speaking."

"Well... it is a nonsensical way of speaking, if you ask me."

"[Mumbling] Nobody asked."

"What's that?"

"*cough cough* I was clearing my throat."

#realtors #idioms #nonsense

"Њему је и комарац музика" - он и досадно прима као пријатно

#srpski #српски #serbian #serbocroatian #idioms

A friend was eating very quickly, and I said something along the lines of 'wolfing down her meal'.

She had never heard of that phrase, and the moment I said it, it felt wrong.

Do you remember in school when someone said 'intensive purposes' or 'I literally died' because we didn't understand whatwe were saying?

Is wolfing food the same thing? Am I confoosing it for something else?

#English #ShitBritsSay #Idioms #IdiomsInEnglish

Saw this sentence with both the Irish English "give out" and a standardized-English "give out":

"The banks often give out¹ that the rules are too tight and they can’t give out² the money people need."

¹ complain
² issue, distribute

Source and commentary: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/giving-out-irish-style/

#language #dialect #idioms #IrishEnglish #EnglishUsage #phrases

Giving out, Irish style

The phrasal verb give out has several common senses: distribute – ‘she gave out free passes to the gig’ emit – ‘the machine gave out a distinctive hum’ break down, stop work…

Sentence first

Idiomatic Expressions of Identification: "Name to Face" vs. "Face to Name"

Learn the difference between 'put a name to a face' and 'put a face to a name'. Understand how we remember people by sight or by name.

#EnglishPhrases, #LanguageLearning, #Memory, #Communication, #Idioms

https://newsletter.tf/knowing-faces-names-put-name-face/

We often use phrases to talk about remembering people. 'Put a name to a face' means you know someone's face but forget their name. 'Put a face to the name' means you know a name but can't picture the person. It's about how our memory works.

#EnglishPhrases, #LanguageLearning, #Memory, #Communication, #Idioms

https://newsletter.tf/knowing-faces-names-put-name-face/

Knowing Faces and Names: What 'Put a Name to a Face' Means

Learn the difference between 'put a name to a face' and 'put a face to a name'. Understand how we remember people by sight or by name.