Meaning: an impossible 'no-win' situation
Originally exclusive to bureaucracy, and used to describe a regulation which depended on another, which in turn depended on the first, this idiom today is used to describe any no-win situation, or a situation which seems impossible or difficult because it contains two opposite facts. It originated from Joseph Heller’s famous 1961 novel of the same name.
While a vast number of idioms originate from historical periods, this is not true of all of them, and ‘having a bad hair day’ is one of these exceptions.
Originally meaning ‘a day when your hair seems unmanageable', the use of this expression has now extended to describe a day when everything seems to go wrong.
Uncle Dave
It can be difficult to say 'no' to people. Here Danny tells us the polite ways to say 'no' to requests and invitations.
The key to understanding the humour in this cartoon is the word ‘spirit’. ‘Spirit’ is an example of a ‘homonym’: a word which has the same spelling and a pronunciation as another word, but with a different meaning. In this case, ‘spirit’ can mean ‘a ghost-like spirit’ or a ‘hard type of alcohol’, for example, whiskey or vodka.
'She threw the money willy - nilly on the table'.
This expression has two slightly differing yet related meanings – it can mean ‘in a disorganised way’ or ‘whether with or against your will’.
'She couldn't understand the text, it sounded like mumbo - jumbo.'
There’s an American television series, called Heroes, which has recently captured the imagination of viewers everywhere. This series, as the name suggests, tells the story of a bunch of everyday people who suddenly discover that they have amazing super-powers, with which they are destined to save the world. Or at least die trying. Or something along those lines, anyway.
Let’s take a look at the phrasal verb ‘drop off’. As you know, phrasal verbs can have more than one meaning. In this cartoon, ‘drop off’ means both ‘fall off’ and ‘fall asleep’. For example:
1) Drop off – similar to fall
The boys dropped stones off the cliff
2) Drop off – fall asleep
Meaning: To think very hard to find an answer.
