American Idioms and Phrases Just For Fun

All of sudden

This phrase is similar to the more common adverb Suddenly, and can almost always be used in place of it.

Example: All of sudden there was a loud knocking at the door.

To get on the Ball

This amusing little phrase says that someone needs to improve something.

            Your work is so sloppy. Get on the ball!!

To have the blue/ To be Blue

To many the color blue suggest coolness or calm,but in this idiom it means that someone is sad or depressed.

            Since Jane stop dating Bob, She is been very blue.

            Don’t be blue. Think about all the happiness you’ve had.

Break The Ice

This idiom really has nothing to do with ice; instead, it says that someone was the first to approach another person.

            The silence was a long, but Maria broke the ice with a simple “hello.” 

A card

This word describes a man (more rarely, a woman) who is very funny or witty.

            I like Jack. He’s such a card.

            You always make me laugh. You’re a real card.

To Keep an eye on

This unusual expression means that someone will watch carefully or guard something.

            Keep an eye on my car. I have to go to the bank.

            I can’t leave right now. I want to keep an eye on the pot on the stove.

To kick the Bucket

This expression is usually used when someone speaks about someone else’s death in a casual or even comic manner. Its synonym is to die.

            When you kick the bucket, you’re going straight to hell.

            Her house was sold a couple of years after Granny kicked the bucket.

Once in a blue moon

This expression explains about something which is very seldom.

            Once in a blue moon, he will go out and see the movie.

Out Of The Blue

This expression has similar meaning with adverb suddenly, unexpectedly.

            To his parents his wedding plans came out of the blue.

Pie in the sky

This expression means an unlikely future reward.

            You’re nice to your uncle just because you think he might leave you all his money

            When he dies?? Oh come on, that’s pie in the sky!!!.

On The Go

This phrase is usually used in a place of busy and in a hurry.

            Her busy job really keeps her on the go.

To Keep in Touch

This phrase means to maintain communication with someone whether by telephone,letter, or other means.

            After you move to New York, please keep in touch. 

Rain Cats and Dogs

This expression has absolutely nothing to do with animals. Use it when you want to say that it is raining very hard.

            I’m not going out there. It’s raining cats and dogs!!

Scatterbrained

This expression suggests that someone is Completely disorganized or a poor thinker.

            She’ll never finish that project. She’s too scatterbrained.

To run out of

This expression is used to say that someone has exhausted the supply of a certain product or that is used up.

            I think we’re about to run out of milk.

            They run out of gas just before getting to Chicago.

To be sick of

This phrase means that someone finds something unbearable or can no longer endure it.

            She left him because she was sick of his constant complaining.

            Will the sun never shine? I’m sick of this weather!

Many Happy Returns of The Day

This phrase is used primarily in the form given above. It is used as a form of congratulations for a special day such as a birthday, anniversary, or wedding.

            ‘’Happy birthday!! Many happy returns of the day!!’’

Topsy-Turvy

This is used to say that something or some place is in a terrible state or very disorganized.

            Mother entered my room and became angry when she saw that everything was

            Topsy-turvy.

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Langue and Parole (Linguistic Antrophology)

Saussure is considered to be responsible for making dichotomy between Langue and Parole. Here, I’m trying to explain these two concepts by reference to Course in General Linguistics.

Ferdinand de Saussure is a linguist who has given much significant influence to the development of Linguistics in the 20th century. As the “father” of Modern Linguistics, he is considered as a linguist who has had a monumental impact on Structuralism theory. Furthermore, Saussure’s idea about general theory of sign system that is semiology. He has five views about language that was being guidance for many linguist, they are signifier and signified, form and content, langue and parole, synchronic and diachronic, and syntagmatic and paradigmatic. However, in this case I would like to proffer only one of his views that are Langue and Parole as the components of language.

Langue
Langue refers to the abstract system of language that is internalized by a given speech community. Langue can be considered as pure referential. In this case, the point of this approach is analyzing internal relation of elements in languages and search for the structure and system of languages without considering external elements of language. Here, structure must have three characteristics that are: (1) consist of units, (2) having an order, and (3) one element precedes the other element. The branches of Pure linguistic that is made by Langue approach are Phonetics and Phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Here, I intend to give the explanation about those branches of language by adding some example in order that we are able to see system and structure in it.

• Phonetics and Phonology: linguistic branch that focus on the phoneme in language.
   Example: Phoneme /b/ vs phoneme /p/ → [pin] vs [bin]
• Morphology
  Example: Cat (plural) → Cat + -s
  The sign Cat and cats are associated in the mind, producing an abstract paradigm of the word forms of cat. Comparing this with other paradigms of word forms, we can note that in the English plural often consist of little more than adding an s to the end of the word.

• Syntax is a linguistic branch that study about the inter relationship between elements of sentence structure, and of the rules governing the arrangement of sentences in sequences.
Example: The cat Climbs the tree (The Cat is a Subject, Climbs is a Verb and The tree is an object)

• Semantics: pure linguistic approach to semantic is to emphasize one of modes significance way that is called pure semantic approach (referential).
Example: a cat chases a mouse. 
- This sentence claimed in proposition that there is an agent “a cat” doing an activity “chases” and the patient is “a mouse” and the proposition must be true if it relevant with reality. 
- To construct the sentence we may follow some process such us selection of the words (system), syntagma (structure) and also concatenation (stretch of words). The sentence constructed by using the convention language which gives a meaning to the sentence. In this case, we select the word “a cat”, “chases” and “a mouse”. These words are appropriate to construct a sentence a cat chases a mouse. Thus, we will consider syntagma in the sentence in which we cannot relate the word “chases” with “flow” or “a mouse” with “flow” because we found no meaning from this relation and it is inappropriate with grammatical structure.

 
Parole
Parole can be considered as individual act of speech and “putting into a practice of language”. Parole is heterogeneous, that is to say composed of unrelated or differing parts of elements. The study of parole would be entirely focused on individual utterances, using all the available resources of formal and empirical study to analyze actual statements, usually within a specific language. It could be reflection of individual freedom in which the speech that created by saying the words in given language. In this sense, de Saussure defines that language as a product, the social side of speech being beyond the control of the speaker. In addition, according to de Saussure, language is not a function of the speaker, but passively assimilated and speaking as defined by Saussure, is premeditated act.
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Language Acquisition of Child

First language acquisition of child is the process of children in acquiring their first language or mother tongue. In this stage, the ability of children in acquiring language is influenced by two major factors that are internal (family) and external (environtment out side the home where children live in).

Babies are born with the ability to distinguish speech from other sounds they hear, even though they do not understand what it means. By the time children reach school age, they are speaking in complex sentences, having conversations, and understanding most of what they hear.

Children's brains are designed to help them learn language. From the time they are born, their brains register and process the sounds they hear. As a child's brain, thinking skills, and motor systems develop, so does his/her understanding and use of language to communicate. Underlying language development is the ability to think about the world, and explore it with vision, hearing, smell, touch, etc. As a child begins to make sense of the world through exploration, language is attached to those experiences. Language develops gradually, from single words at about twelve months to complex sentences at five years, and from simple concepts (juice, shoes) to those that are more abstract (frustrated, addition). School-age children continue to learn and use increasingly complex and abstract language.


From the phenomenon that we seen in every day, here is an interesting question (but people think it is natural phenomenon). However, I will try to explain it according to my experience when I was child. The question is “how the children learn their first language?’’ ‘’How do I acquire and learn my mother tongue?’’ To answer the question, I have asked my mother and father to get the information about the way I acquire and learn language when I was child. Then, here, I greatly describe about that.

First of all, When I was 10 month, I able to say some words but not perfect. The first word that I could utter is MA-MA and PA-PA. In this stage, I couldn’t say many words because I have a tendency to utter the words which have the same pattern of morpheme. Such as CU-CU (susu), MA-MAM (makan), MI-MI (minum), BO-BO (tidur), NE-NE (nenek), KA-KA (kakak).

Furthermore, My mother and father told me that I was categorized as a child who made a giant leap in acquiring and learn Bahasa Indonesia as my mother tongue. I able to say many words fluently and clearly when I was 1 years old. For example: I did not say any more MA-MAM for MAKAN, MI-MI for MINUM, PI-GI for PERGI, ATUT for TAKUT because I could say these words correctly that MINUM for MINUM, MAKAN for MAKAN, PERGI for PERGI, TAKUT for TAKUT etc.

Moreover, My father and mother told me that I able to speak bahasa Indonesia as my mother tongue when I was 2 years old because I lived around the people who used to speak in bahasa Indonesia rather than local language. At this age, I used to call my father by saying “Bapaknya Icha” not “Bapak” because I used to hear my neighbor called my father with that call then I imitated it. My neighbor called my father “Bapaknya Icha” because my brother’s name is Icha therefore they called my father so. Then, my parents explained to me that I should call my father with “bapak” so step by step I could understand. This is being an unforgettable moment that my parents used to tell me.

Finally, my parents told me that I could interact to another people actively because I understand what they mean when they tried to talk with me. I could answer the simple questions correctly.

For example:
Q = “bapakmu pergi kemana?”
A = “bapakku pergi ke kantor”
Q = “kamu mau pergi kemana?”
A = “main”
Q = “siapa nama kakakmu?”
A = “icha”
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