介绍:
STRIKE (OR TOUCH) A CHORD
the issue of food safety strikes a chord with almost everyone. Environmental protection should strike a chord with most people. "this writer strikes a chord with young women";
MEANING: create an emotional response; evoke a reaction, response, or emotion; affect or stir someone's emotions
ETYMOLOGY: chord: a group of (typically three or more) notes sounded together, as a basis of harmony. not all musical notes sound good together. so if you strike a chord, it means you've hit the right notes, and thus is a metaphor for creating an emotional response in someone.
NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE
where there's smoke, there's fire He claims that they were just good friends and that they never kissed eachother, but i always say, there's no smoke without fire. Everyone in David's office accuses him of stealing things. Though he denies all of it, I say there's no smoke without fire. Thomas's wife is very bruised but he denies ever hitting her. I say there's no smoke without fire.
MEANING: This idiom means that when people suspect something, there is normally a good reason for the suspicion, even if there is no concrete evidence. Gossip or accusations are often substantiated by fact. If there is telltale evidence of some event, the event is probably occurring. something that you say which means that if people are saying that someone has done something bad but no one knows whether it is true, it probably is true
ETYMOLOGY: You can't create smoke without fire. So in this idiom, the smoke is a metaphor for the gossip or accusation, and the fire is a metaphor for whatever caused the accusations or gossip in the first place.
SEA CHANGE
Public opinion has undergone a sea change since the 2002 elections. The long-awaited sea change in higher education is upon us. Their report called for a sea change in the way that economists and politicians think about the benefits of economic growth.
MEANING: An expression that connotes big change; ie. a significant change in comparison to a minor, trivial or insignificant change. A profound transformation.
ETYMOLOGY: From Shakespeare's The Tempest, 1, ii.[1] The phrase is a quotation from Shakespeare. It comes from Ariel's wonderfully evocative song in The Tempest: Full fathom five thy father lies: Of his bones are coral made: Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Shakespeare obviously meant that the transformation of the body of Ferdinand's father was made by the sea, but we have come to refer to a sea change as being a profound transformation caused by any agency.
