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Grammar Police Monday - Know Your Idioms

Idiom (n.): An expression whose meaning cannot be deduced from the meanings of its individual words (ex: jump the gun).

I'm going to start including idioms in my GPM posts about commonly confused words. There's nothing wrong with writing these from time to time, but, if you're going to use one, be sure to get it right. :)

Flesh out vs Flush out
To flesh out means to add substance or detail to an object or idea; to develop.

To flush out means to drive or force something out into the open, such as game birds or criminals.


Palm off vs Pawn off
To palm off means to dispose of by deception or defraud by swapping something for another item of inferior value (can be literal or figurative); to trick as with sleight of hand.

Pawn off is a corrupted version of palm off.

Jerry-built vs Jury-rigged
These two are similar, but not quite the same. If something is jerry-built, it is poorly made. If something is jury-rigged, it is fixed temporarily in makeshift manner, typically with materials one has on hand. The former has a negative connotation, whereas the latter implies cleverness.


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That's all for today.
Thanks for stopping by. :)


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Comments

  1. I didn't even know all of these. Thanks for the lesson :)

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  2. Great post. Idioms used correctly can sum something up in seconds. Used incorrectly the m in idiom becomes a t and no one wants to be one of those.

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  3. Another set of good examples to watch out for. I didn't even know the Palm off vs Pawn off ones at all.

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  4. Just started following you on Bloglovin. I'm not a native speaker, so your tips come in very handy.

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  5. I get the sneaky suspicion I may have mixed up flesh out and flush out in the past lol!!

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  6. Totally thought it was Jerry-rigged. XD

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  7. Why do they make it so hard to keep these saying straight by making them all so similar in sound. Thanks, Melissa.

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  8. Thanks for the Jerry-built/Jury-rigged clarification. That was one I didn't know the nuances on.

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  9. How funny, I've never heard of "jerry-built". That makes me wonder if it's an anti German thing from WWII or something (Jerry being slang for German at the time).

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    1. Wow. I didn't know that.
      And, maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought the Germans were known for good craftsmanship. Hmm...

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  10. The last one 'jury-rigged' was new to me. Educational as always. Thanks Melissa!

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  11. Nice! These are easy to mess up.

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  12. Adding idioms is a good idea. They're basically the same things as words, except even more colloquial.

    I've never heard of Jerry-built. I wonder if I can find out about the etymology of it.

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  13. Another great day for definitions. When I first joined the blogging world, I asked my friend a lot of stupid questions, but luckily she was nice enough to answer without laughing too hard :)

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  14. Jerry-built is one I hadn't heard.

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  15. I hadn't heard of Jerry-built either. I love learning new phrases.

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  16. Cool addition for the Grammar Police!

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  17. I have to say that for many, many years I thought jury-rigged was jerry-rigged. Then I finally saw it in print. But I didn't know the difference. Awesome!

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  18. I'm not familiar with either jury-rigged or jerry-rigged. We either don't say them hear in the land of Oz or I've just never heard them.

    On another topic, how busy are you in September? I was wondering whether you'd like to play a valuable role in the next Campaign? Totally fine if you've got too much on though. Just let me know. :-)

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  19. Wow! I learned something new today. Thank you for sharing :)

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  20. I've missed my GPM's! Clarifying idioms is an excellent idea. I think Jerry-rigged comes from the World War eras, meaning something that the Germans had a hand in fixing, thus the negative connotations.

    Thanks for this post, and for all your support lately.

    M.L. Swift, Writer

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  21. Oo, this was a good one. Bonus points for the toilet imagery. LOL

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  22. Gah, I just noticed I wrote "hear" instead of "here". Doh!

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  23. Palm off was new to me as well! Is the toilet your way of saying grammar has really gone down the crapper? :P

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  24. Btw, I FINALLY got an eMail notice of your post! So excited! Hope they all start working again. Since I lost Google Reader I've been missing a lot of posts. (I know, there are alternatives, but that takes time for me to learn something new--and time has been my enemy lately. :)

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  25. I love your grammar police posts. Never heard of jerry-built, but I like it. :)

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