I think of , they definitely have a point …
There are171,476 wordsin current use in the English language , harmonize to the Oxford English Dictionary . If you ’re find out English for the first time , it ’s an intimidating number .
Some of the words are cutesy ( kerfuffle , jubilee ) . Others are onomatopoeic , with a alike sound to the melodic theme they ’re line ( miaow , gaol , close call ) . Some are bizarre sounding ( for example , syzygy : the alignment of three celestial object , such as the sun , the Earth , and either the Sun Myung Moon or another planet . )
I mean, they definitely have a point…
Outside of those 171,476 weird , wonderful wrangle , you have idioms , which arephrases that ca n’t be to the full understood ground on the signification of the individual words . American English idioms run to be particularly strange : Put lip rouge on a fuzz ? They went postal ? talk the Camellia sinensis ? It ’s a deal for a unexampled English speaker to take in !
We asked people from other country and foreign - born Americans to share the American phrases they never mystify their school principal around , and frankly , could do without .
Keep in nous , there were a ton more locution they love , which we ’ll gossip another day . See what they had to say for this list below .
“Break a leg.”
“ Every meter I hear this phrase I think of literally someone with a broken ramification and that visual sense affright me . The reason for this is that I heard this phrase when I was starting to find out English , and I was taking everything with its actual signification . afterward on , I understood that it means safe luck , but I can not manage to get rid of the vision from my mind . ” ―Olga Grijalva Alvarez , a Mexican travel content creator
“Put lipstick on a pig.”
“ I detest Sus scrofa and the visual of that grosses me out . ” ―Jihan Fawaz , a Lebaneselanguage teacher who runs the YouTube accountLearn Turkish with Jihan
“I’m working on it” (when talking about food).
“ I ’m always surprised when a server at a restaurant asks if I ’m still working on my food . I ’m not working on it ! I ’m savoring it ! ” ―Virginia Langhammer , a Brazilian who teaches Portuguese and owns theSpeaking Brazilian Language School
“I can’t even.”
“ I sympathise the context when I first heard it in a video . Everything is fine , actually , except the fact that it ’s grammatically wrong . When I still hear the phrase , I expect it to be completed somehow . ” ―Firdaus Baig , an Indian tutor who teaches Hindi on-line Indian
“On a weekly basis.”
“ Why use such a long set phrase to say ‘ weekly ’ ? I even told one of my first English teachers that it did n’t make sense to me , but the instructor get a line no trouble with the expression . ” ―Eli Sousa , a Brazilian who teach Portuguese
“Literally”
“ I ’m not a sports fan of Americans aver ‘ literally ’ in every other sentence when they literally do n’t know how to habituate the word . ‘ I was literally over the moonlight about the news … ’ It ’s a word that has become very Americanized . ” ―Macca Sherifi , a British traveling blogger atAn Adventurous World
“It’s not rocket science.”
“ The job is not the musical phrase itself , the problem is that in general , when someone says it , it is not done in a very nice or easy way . ” ―Grijalva Alvarez
“Start a family.”
“ I have a splanchnic negatively charged reaction to ‘ to start a family ’ which , adverse to the way I interpreted it the first time I try it , means not moving in together or getting marital but having children . My trouble with this phrasal idiom is , of course , strictly ideological : it implies that childless family are not really mob but simply prospect for being one . Because now is a very difficult clip for reproductive exemption in the United States ( or , to put things flat out , now is the time when generative freedom is actively threatened ) , every clock time I hear it I also feel its sharpness , its potential to be weaponize , its meanness . ” ―Irina Zaykovskaya , a lecturer in Russian and philology at the University of Minnesota who was digest and raised in St. Petersburg , Russia
“Sure” or “uh-huh” instead of “you’re welcome.”
“ When we study English as a second language , we take that the right way to respond to the idiom ‘ thank you ’ is ‘ you ’re welcome . ’ But in everyday life history , Americans seldom say that , am I right ? I only hear ‘ you ’re welcome ’ in more formal situation . The most unwashed way to respond to a ‘ give thanks you ’ is ‘ sure ’ or ‘ uh - huh , ’ inNew Yorkat least . When I first moved to New York , I was shocked when people said ‘ uh - huh ’ to me ! I think people were being rude or that I had done something improper . But , of course , now I ’m used to it . ” ―Langhammer
“Bite the bullet.”
“ I never really understood this and always took it literally . I always thought it think shooting someone . ”―Ipinmi Akinkugbe , a Nigerian British travel blogger who runs the web site Férìnàjò
“First floor”
“ The first day when I move to wreak in the U.S. , I asked where my desk was located . My manager told me that it was on the third story . I went all the direction up to the third flooring but could n’t notice my desk . afterward on , I bring in that Americans called the priming storey the first base , and the first floor the 2nd floor , and the second floor the third storey . ” ―Sindy Chan , a blogger from Germany ( by way of Hong Kong ) who late move to the U.S.
“Used their services.”
“ Using the word ‘ use ’ to touch on to the great unwashed ’s divine service , like in the sentence ‘ I ’d definitely use him again . ’ Nothing wrong with the word per se , but in Brazil , we never apply this word to talk about services an individual renders . If we do , it sounds disrespectful to that person ’s efforts ; it ’s like they can be used up and discarded . You utilise a product , you apply computer software , but regarding a person — you work with , you hire , you resort to their services . ” ―Sousa
“He/she is a keeper.”
“ This phrase gives me the same response colour giveWednesday Addams― I break out in hives and skin begin peeling off my finger cymbals , or at least it feels that way . English is not my aboriginal language . I learned my basics in the classroom and I am used to consciously performing simple morphological analysis to understand new word and expressions I encounter . ‘ Rearrange ’ ? ‘ Re ’ is a prefix that often means doing something again , so rearrange might intend something like ‘ coiffure afresh , in a different way ’ . That sort of thing .
This is why I had a luck of trouble processing ‘ he / she is a keeper ’ when I saw it for the first time . A keeper is someone who is doing the keeping , proper ? Like a prole is someone who work , and an employer is someone who employ multitude , and even a zookeeper is someone who keeps a zoo in decree ! But this interpretation did n’t make good sense for the contexts in which I was seeing ‘ he / she is a keeper , ’ so for a farseeing fourth dimension I look at the set phrase to mean that the person report in it is capable of keeping the relationship in order of magnitude . I realize that people practice it to refer to someone who is deserving keep around much , much later , and it bug me every meter I hear it . ” ― Zaykovskaya
“What?!”
“ The word I hate is when Americans say “ what ! ? ” rather of “ pardon . ” American are very outspoken and seem to blurt out ‘ what ’ when they do n’t hear or do n’t empathize you . Equally nettlesome is the word “ huh ! ? ” Perhaps that comes back to our ties to England English , but pardon is a much politer way to ask someone to repeat something . We grew up sympathy that ‘ what ? ! ’ was quite rude . ” ―Jules Hatfield , an Australian travel blogger
“Hand-me-down”
“ This can well be translate but it has such negative connotation attach to it . I prefer just being genuine and saying ‘ these are my old siblings ’ dress . ’ It just voice skillful . ” ― Akinkugbe
“You cannot be serious.”
“ I do n’t like it when Americans say : ‘ you’re able to not be serious ! ’ It just seems so insincere the way they say it . ” ―Sherifi
“Tickle me pink.”
“ Although its significance is not genuine , I had the visual of being tickled so this phrase does n’t gravel with me . ” ―FawazThis article in the first place appeared onHuffPost .
