Tag Archives: idioms

Word Origins: Bimbo

“bimbo: [E20th] Bimbos in English are young women, but in Italian a bimbo is a baby, and in English bimbo was originally an American slang term for a fellow or chap, especially a foolish one. In 1947 P.G. Wodehouse wrote of ‘Bimbos who went about the place making passes at innocent girls after discarding their wives.’ This meaning is first recorded in 1918, and by the 1920s the modern sense was being used. In the 1980s the word himbo was coined to mean ‘a male bimbo.’ At the same time bimbette was coined for a younger bimbo. Compare BABE.’

Excerpted from: Creswell, Julia. Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Cultural Literacy: Dog Eat Dog

Moving on through my differentiated and supported materials folder, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom dog eat dog. I suspect you can find this document, in a simpler version, elsewhere on this blog. I developed this version of this worksheet to accompany a reading of the Langston Hughes poem “Let America Be America Again” which puts this idiom to work.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Cultural Literacy: Ships that Pass in the Night

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “ships that pass in the night.” This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three questions. A spare, but adequate, introduction to an idiom that may well be fading from public use.

Did you know this line comes from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow? I didn’t until I prepared this document for publication here.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Cultural Literacy: High Horse

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom high horse, as in “to be on one’s high horse.” This is still, I think, a relatively common expression in American English. In any event, it is one of those idioms that requires prior knowledge and interpretive skills–you know, those things that combine into semantic webs that we no longer teach for, preferring the narrow, blinkered tests that crappy educational publishers produce.

This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one long, kind of complicated compound sentence; you may want to overhaul the text for emergent readers or students for whom English is a second or third language.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Cultural Literacy: If the Shoe Fits, Wear It

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “If the shoe fits, wear it.” This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension question. A solid explanation of this once-common idiom (if not still?) in English.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Cultural Literacy: Diamond in the Rough

Moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “diamond in the rough.” This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences (and beware the first one, which is a long compound separated by a colon) and three comprehension questions. A short, but thorough, introduction to this commonly used idiom–in English, at least.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Cultural Literacy: Vicious Circle

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom vicious circle.  This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one longish compound containing a colon and a semicolon which might, obviously, be best revised for emergent readers and those working to acquire English as a new language. There is one simple comprehension question and one imperative to use vicious circle in a sentence.

In other words, a basic introduction to this very commonly used idiom in English.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Cultural Literacy: Throw the Book at Someone

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom throw the book at someone. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and two comprehension questions; a model, I hope, of effective symmetry and brevity.

The question arises, however: does anyone use this expression anymore?

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Cultural Literacy: The Bad Workman Always Blames His Tools

It’s not much used anymore, I think (and I don’t know if I’ve ever heard it beyond a couple of farms I worked on in the late 1970s), but here, nonetheless, is a Cultural worksheet on the proverb “the bad workman always blames his tools.” This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading. Short and sweet–but perhaps a nice little exercise in thinking abstractly.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Cultural Literacy: Once in a Blue Moon

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “Once in a Blue Moon.” This is a half-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading followed by three comprehension questions. As the reading explains that a blue moon occurs only “about every thirty-two months,” students will be able to understand that this expression means the same thing, where people are concerned, as “Long time, no see,” or “I haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays.” Where events are concerned, students will infer that something that happens “once in a blue moon” doesn’t happen very often, and is, arguably, a rare event.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.