♦ Queen's English (or King's English) is standard or correct grammatical English spoken or written in the United Kingdom. It may be spoken in any accent. It is used for many forms of written text including newspapers, business letters, essays, text books, fiction books, CVs, and government documents. When the British monarch is a queen, [...]
To be nuts about something is to be very enthusiastic about it. To be nuts about someone is to be very fond of someone, or to love them very much. Examples of use: 1. I'm nuts about nuts and dried fruit! 2. Everybody knows Marko is nuts about Maria. 3. I'm nuts about you! [...]
Here in the UK we have a reputation for being obsessed with the weather – and it's true, we do love to talk about the weather One of the reasons for this is that our weather is unpredictable and it changes frequently; and so perhaps it's not surprising that we have so many idioms and [...]
A guinea pig is somebody or something that is used to test new ideas or products. Guinea pigs are small stout-bodied rodents. In the UK they are often kept as much-loved pets. Unfortunately, they are also often used in research labs for research and biological experiments, and this is the origin of this idiomatic expression. [...]
A night owl is someone who likes to stay awake until late at night, or who works at night. Examples of use: 1. He's always been a night owl: when he was a child he often read until past midnight. 2. There were a few night owls sitting in the café, but most people [...]
It's Halloween on the 31st October, the night when ghosts and witches are said to appear. Here are some suitably ghostly, spooky, evil and mysterious words and phrases… Witches, ghosts and skeletons ♦ witch-hunt – to go on a witch-hunt is to try and find and punish or harrass people with unpopular [...]
Here are some useful expressions for expressing or talking about anger. gets one's goat If something annoys or irritates you, it gets your goat. It's thought this expression might have its origins in horse racing. Nervous racing horses were kept with goats in order to keep them calm. If a horse's goat companion was lost [...]
