I Love Idioms: With Cartoon Illustrations

By Ahmad Shafiq Ahmad Kamal, Shahida Sulaiman and Zarina Mustafa

As non-native English speakers, we would probably find it difficult to understand even the most common idioms. We should understand the form of each idiomatic expression before we can use it correctly in a sentence, besides knowing its meaning. In this book, the list of 99 common idioms is in alphabetical order under each chapter that shows its category. Each idiom comes with its meaning and its form (verb, noun, adjective, adverb, or respective phrase) to ease understanding on how to use it as part of a complete sentence. This book attempts to provide an analogy to help us remember the meaning accordingly. Each comic strip illustrates an example for each idiom in terms of how we can use it in spoken English. It also attempts to reflect directly its figurative or literal meaning; or even both literal and figurative meanings in some cartoon illustrations. Hence, this book aims to make readers fall in love with idioms when learning them in easy and fun way through cartoon illustrations. Dr Shahida Sulaiman together with cartoonist ASAK and Dr Zarina Mustafa who specialises in English field, form a great team to make this book worthwhile to all readers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Feb 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781482830170

Ahmad Shafiq Ahmad Kamal

Dr Shahida Sulaiman (Dr Shahi) is an associate professor at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. She has been serving in the academic line since 2004. Her research fields include software engineering and knowledge management. As an academician, she has a strong interest in finding ways and strategies to ease learning mainly in English as a Second Language (ESL). As Information and Communication Technology (ICT) grows rapidly and most studies are in the English language, she believes one must master the language in order to be competitive. This book is hence one of her strategies to inspire readers to love English by learning the commonly used idioms in a fun and easy way. Ahmad Shafiq Ahmad Kamal (ASAK) is an aspiring young cartoonist. His first creative work was the illustration for a book entitled “Senangnya Cakap Inggeris” written by Dr Shahi. This book will be his first book with Dr Shahi that includes all his cartoons based on the concepts designed by Dr Shahi. Currently ASAK is creating his own cartoon characters for his own comic. Dr Zarina Mustafa is a senior lecturer at Universiti Sains Malaysia. She specialises in Curriculum & Instructions, and also in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Teaching has always been her passion. She has a colourful experience in the discipline, having had the opportunity to teach in daily secondary schools and also at the tertiary level. Her research area of interest is the sustainability of curriculum innovation, mainly on the adoption of task-based language teaching (TBLT) in the classrooms. As an educationist, she warmly welcomes this pedagogically designed book as a part of the endeavour to motivate fun learning of idioms.

Book preview

I LOVE

IDIOMS

with Cartoon Illustrations

D:\Shahida\MyBook\English-Idiom\CoverPage\TheBestOfBothWorlds_colored.jpg

Shahida Sulaiman,

Ahmad Shafiq Ahmad Kamal,

Zarina Mustafa

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Copyright © 2015 by Shahida Sulaiman, Ahmad Shafiq Ahmad Kamal, Zarina Mustafa.

ISBN:      eBook         978-1-4828-3017-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 Idioms as a Noun or Noun Phrase

1. A Bad Egg

2. A Bird’s Eye View

3. A Blessing in Disguise

4. A Bookworm

5. A Chip on One’s Shoulder

6. A Dime A Dozen

7. A Drop in the Bucket

8. A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned

9. A Picture Paints a Thousand Words

10. A Piece of Cake

11. A White Elephant

12. Actions Speak Louder than Words

13. Apple of One’s Eye

14. Cock and Bull Story

15. Dry Run

16. Every Cloud has a Silver Lining

17. Field Day

18. Flash in the Pan

19. Good Samaritan

20. Gut Feeling

21. Practice Makes Perfect

22. Rise and Shine

23. Rule of Thumb

24. Scapegoat

25. The Ball is in Your Court

26. The Best of Both Worlds

27. You are What You Eat

28. Zero Tolerance

Chapter 2 Idioms as an Adjective or Adjective Phrase

1. All Ears

2. All in the Same Boat

3. As High as a Kite

4. At One’s Fingertips

5. Back to Square One

6. Blood is Thicker than Water

7. Cast Iron Stomach

8. Chicken-Hearted

9. Down-to-Earth

10. Fixed in Your Ways

11. Icing on the Cake

12. In Black and White

13. In the Dark

14. It’s a Small World

15. It’s Anyone’s Call

16. Last but Not Least

17. New Kid on the Block

18. Off the Record

19. On the Same Page

20. Rome was Not Built in One Day

Chapter 3 Idioms as a Verb or Verb Phrase

1. Add Fuel to the Fire

2. Barking up the Wrong Tree

3. Beating around the Bush

4. Bend over Backwards

5. Building Castles in the Air

6. Buy a Lemon

7. Crack Someone Up

8. Cry over Spilt Milk

9. Cry Wolf

10. Cut to the Chase

11. Don’t Count Your Chickens before They Hatch

12. Don’t Put all Your Eggs in One Basket

13. Drink