fett on 28/2/2007 at 20:29
Here in Arkansas, my fav is 'That's boy's dumber'n a mud fence'. :laff:
Kolya on 28/2/2007 at 21:36
If no one here has ever heard of this it's either a catch question or only used in the one-horse town where your friend's teacher once had a fabulous stew. So I'd write that you asked a few dozen natives from all over the country and since no one knew it it's likely not an idiom at all because that implies a somewhat common usage. And that's it. Give it back to where it came from. Let them explain what they think it is. Then come back here and we will have beer, singing and laughter and cow on sticks and watch the trains roll by all night long.
bukary on 28/2/2007 at 22:12
This idiom is from Virginia Evans' Student's Book. Her books are quite famous among those who learn English.
Vigil on 28/2/2007 at 22:30
Apparently not among those who speak it, however, otherwise we might have heard of the idiom we're meant to be so commonly using ;)
fett on 28/2/2007 at 22:37
Get bent.
R Soul on 28/2/2007 at 22:44
Quote Posted by fett
Get bent.
Is
that in the book?
Strangeblue on 1/3/2007 at 01:53
hrm... yeah, for a "colloquial term" we supposedly all know in the English speaking world, it's certainly one I've never seen/heard before. And I've never heard of the writer and her books, either.
But if I were guessing the meaning of "glimpse a cow out of a moving train" by the structure and word meanings, I'd guess it meant something like "to get a very small idea of a very big topic/subject" or "make an educated guess based on very little information." As one would only get a very slight look of a cow if one were looking out of the window of a moving train, so one might have to guess a bit as to what one had seen; or having seen a cow from a moving train, you don't have all the information about the cow ('cause you didn't have time to study it), but you know it's a cow and you know what that means--big, hairy, bovine, has horns, may give milk.
Ko0K on 1/3/2007 at 02:44
"Glimpse a cow"? "Peer at the small print"? Sounds like this Evans lady basically tried to pull a fast one by putting a minor spin on more conventional phrases such as "read the fine print" and "out of the corner of my eye." My suggestion is that you burn her books and get another written by someone who's not a bullshitter.
(edit) ...or don't, if sounding like a complete foreigner who mixes up words and confuses people is your thing. It's your call, I guess.
(edit) This isn't the first time I saw ridiculous, never used phrases in English text books, by the way. Why is it that some textbook authors try too hard to strut their stuff, when what matters is the basics? My guess is probably because they can get away with it when their readers are poor, unsuspecting non-native speakers.
Aja on 1/3/2007 at 04:38
Also, "glimpse" seems to be far more common in English as a noun (ie, "get a glimpse of something") than as a verb.
I'm an English major and I've never heard of the phrase either.
jtr7 on 1/3/2007 at 07:06
Maybe it means to be distracted from your present course by something insignificant. Or to lose sight of where you're going. But I don't think that's it either. Googling....
