Page 263 - Practical English Usage 3ed - Michael Swan, Oxford

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idioms, collocations and fixed expressions What are idioms?
An expression like turn up (meaning 'arrive'), break even (meaning 'make neither a profit nor a loss') or a can of worms (meaning 'a complicated problem ') can be difficult to understand, because its meaning is different from the meanings of the separate words in the expression. (If you know break and even, this does not help you at all to understand break even.) Expressions like these are called 'idioms'. Idioms are usually special to one language and
cannot be translated word for word (though related languages may share some idioms).
verbs with particles or prepositions
Common short verbs like bring, come, do, get, give, go, have, keep, make, put, and take are very often used with prepositions or adverb particles (e.g. on, off, up, away) to make two-word verbs. These are called 'prepositional verbs' or 'phrasal verbs', and many of them are idiomatic.
Can you look after the cats while I'm away? She just doesn't know how to bring up children. 1 gave up chemistry because 1 didn't like it.
Many of these two-word verbs are especially common in informal speech and writing. Compare:
- What time are you planning to tum up? (informal)
Please let Its know when you plan to arrive. (more formal) - ]Itst keep on tillYOIl get to the crossroads. (informal)
Continue as far as the crossroads. (formal) For details of phrasal and prepositional verbs. see 599-600.
collocations (conventional word combinations)
We can say I fully understand, but not I fully like; I rather like, but not I rather understand; I firmly believe, but not I firmly think. Somebody can be a heavy smoker or a devoted friend, but not a devoted smoker or a heavy friend. Expressions like these are also idiomatic, in a sense. They are easy to understand, but not so easy for a learner to produce correctly. One can think of many adjectives that might be used with smoker to say that somebody smokes a lot - for example big, strong, hard, fierce, mad, devoted. It just happens that English speakers have chosen to use heavy, and one has to know this in order to express the idea naturally and correctly. These conventional combinations
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idioms, collocations and fixed expressions 255
of words are called 'collocations', and aU languages have large numbers of them. Some more examples:
a crashing bore (BUT NOT tl effl3hing nl:tistlnee) a burning desire (BUT NOT tl b~ing desire)
a blazing row (aUT NOT a brtrning Felt')
highly reliable (BUT NOT highly BItl)
a golden opportunity (BUT NOT tl gtJltlen ehttriee) change one's mind (aUT NOT ehtlrige Brie'S tMI:tg.'1t3) Thanks a lot. (BUT NOT Fhanle}'B1:t tl ~t.)
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