Wordsmith / FRANK KRISHNER
Colours play a vital part in the way we express ourselves.
Today let’s look at some idioms built around the colour ‘blue’. The newspapers in India talked about the ‘boys in blue’. Who are they? Now, any Indian cricket lover would say, “They’re the Indian cricket team, silly! In England and America, the ‘Boys in blue’ are the policemen. ‘Blue’ refers to the colour of the uniforms.
Our team looked blue when they didn’t win their matches. Indian cricket fans felt rather blue as well. When you look depressed or discontented or feel the same way, you look blue or feel blue.
A bolt from the blue means unexpected bad news, like a bolt of lightening from a blue sky. You can expect lightening if the sky is grey, not when it’s blue and cloudless. When Bangladesh defeated India, it was a bolt from the blue.
To happen out of the blue is to happen unexpectedly. Pakistan Coach Bob Woolmer was murdered. It happened out of the blue. I was feeling lonely and blue, but a long forgotten friend appeared out of the blue with two tickets to the Bob Dylan concert.
Rahul Dravid is no longer the blue-eyed boy of the Indian selectors. A blue eyed boy is a man or a boy who is a favourite. The expression is usually used in a critical sense, with negative overtones, to describe someone who has been singled out for special favours or attention by someone in authority.
A blue moon is a second full moon day appearing in the same month. That’s rare. If you get on a plane and just happen to be seated beside Shah Rukh Khan, it’s an experience that happens once in a blue moon. Now, if you haven’t taken some evidence of your encounter with him, your best friend may not believe you. You may try to tell her it’s true till you’re blue in the face, but she won’t be convinced. Blue in the face means to make a huge [but useless] effort to win a person’s agreement.
Learn-a-word
Offensive
Offensive words, jokes , or actions are not only impolite, they make people angry because they show no respect for people’s values, or moral or religious beliefs. His racist jokes are offensive. To find something offensive means to think it is offensive. Some listeners may find the language some Bhojpuri songs offensive.
------
wordscore: unscramble these words [they all have something in common]
ERECSEXI OSTPR GOGGIJN PINKSPIG
[Last week’s solution: Tiger, leopard, Panther, Jaguar]
Colours play a vital part in the way we express ourselves.
Today let’s look at some idioms built around the colour ‘blue’. The newspapers in India talked about the ‘boys in blue’. Who are they? Now, any Indian cricket lover would say, “They’re the Indian cricket team, silly! In England and America, the ‘Boys in blue’ are the policemen. ‘Blue’ refers to the colour of the uniforms.
Our team looked blue when they didn’t win their matches. Indian cricket fans felt rather blue as well. When you look depressed or discontented or feel the same way, you look blue or feel blue.
A bolt from the blue means unexpected bad news, like a bolt of lightening from a blue sky. You can expect lightening if the sky is grey, not when it’s blue and cloudless. When Bangladesh defeated India, it was a bolt from the blue.
To happen out of the blue is to happen unexpectedly. Pakistan Coach Bob Woolmer was murdered. It happened out of the blue. I was feeling lonely and blue, but a long forgotten friend appeared out of the blue with two tickets to the Bob Dylan concert.
Rahul Dravid is no longer the blue-eyed boy of the Indian selectors. A blue eyed boy is a man or a boy who is a favourite. The expression is usually used in a critical sense, with negative overtones, to describe someone who has been singled out for special favours or attention by someone in authority.
A blue moon is a second full moon day appearing in the same month. That’s rare. If you get on a plane and just happen to be seated beside Shah Rukh Khan, it’s an experience that happens once in a blue moon. Now, if you haven’t taken some evidence of your encounter with him, your best friend may not believe you. You may try to tell her it’s true till you’re blue in the face, but she won’t be convinced. Blue in the face means to make a huge [but useless] effort to win a person’s agreement.
Learn-a-word
Offensive
Offensive words, jokes , or actions are not only impolite, they make people angry because they show no respect for people’s values, or moral or religious beliefs. His racist jokes are offensive. To find something offensive means to think it is offensive. Some listeners may find the language some Bhojpuri songs offensive.
------
wordscore: unscramble these words [they all have something in common]
ERECSEXI OSTPR GOGGIJN PINKSPIG
[Last week’s solution: Tiger, leopard, Panther, Jaguar]
No comments:
Post a Comment