Sheep-worrying and other funny English-isms..

I teach English to a range of students, children and adults, lawyers and psychologists, engineers and nurses so the vocabulary I teach and the phrases that arise can be varied but sometimes they are bizarre and although I recognize them and use them, sometimes they are hard to explain. 

The first one that springs to mind is sheep-worrying it came to mind yesterday when I was reading a story in a newspaper. Here is a list of the weird ones that have been used in the past few weeks in my classes and are hard to explain.

Phrases and their definitions:

Sheep-worrying:  (agriculture) the act (of a dog, sheepdog, wolf, etc) of chasing a flock of sheep and biting or injuring the sheep.

Crying over spilt milk: to lament something that cannot be altered

Raining Cats and Dogs:  to rain very heavily

It's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass-monkey: used to say that the weather is freezing cold

Six of one and half a dozen of another: a situation in which the alternatives are considered equivalent

I used Collins Dictionary for most of the definitions.

If anyone reading this blog has any to add, please do by using the comments function!

Barcelona

March 25, 2014