填空题Directions: Read the text from a magazine
article in which several useful, and interesting idioms of English. Please match
the name of each idiom to one of the statements given below. All Thumbs The thumb
shaped the human hand. Without it, man might not have survived. Luckily, the
hand developed only one thumb. Two thumbs on the hand would be like having two
or more cooks in a small kitchen. There are days when this happens to all of us,
days when everything we do seems to go wrong. We cannot even get the right shoe
on. The typist cannot hit the fight key. The carpenter's hammer misses the nail
and hits his finger. Nothing can be done but throw upon one's hands and moan,
"God, I am all thumbs today." Achilles
Heel This is the story-Homer tells in the Iliad.
Achilles' mother bathed him as a baby in the River Styx to make him immortal,
deathless like a god. But she held him by the heel and it didn't get wet. The
heel, therefore, was the one spot where Achilles could be hurt, possibly killed.
And so he was in the Trojan war. None of the weapons was able to hurt Achilles.
The god Apollo, however, knew of Achilles' weak spot and told Paris about it.
Paris then shot an arrow at Achilles' heel and killed him. Skin of my teeth The character of Job in the
Bible will never he forgotten. People everywhere will remember him as a man who
suffered every misfortune, hut stood firm in his faith and belief in God.
Everything, everybody turned against him. "I escaped," says Job, "by the skin of
my teeth". This expression has puzzled many people because there is no skin on
one's teeth. However, that makes little difference. The phrase used by Job is a
powerful one, describing how near he was to he totally destroyed. So, can you
find another phrase whose meaning is close to this one? Stiff upper lip In the early days of the
Second World War, the civilian population of England lived through terror and
destruction. Nazi bombs rained down with little mercy; London burned from end to
end. But the spirit of the people never broke. They were urged by their leaders
to "keep a still lip". And so they did, and won the respect and admiration of
the entire world. After reading the passage, what do you think the phrase
means? To pull a boner This
phrase comes from the old American minstrel shows. There were two men in these
shows who were called Mr. Bones, because they carded two small sticks of bone
that they used as instruments. They were asked questions by one of the other men
in the show just to get stupid but funny answers. This became known as "pull
boners". But in time the expression meant something more than getting an answer
to make you laugh. It meant something more serious. Can you guess what this
phrase means? Now match each of the idioms with the
appropriate statement. Note: there are two extra
statements. Statements
A. weak point B. lightening missed me by a hair
C. a man who can't get anything fight D. something not
existing E. to keep oneself under control in the face of
disaster F. to do funny silly things G. a bad
blunder, a mistake that is costly