Idioms Ahoy! Why's he talking about Clouds?

Always on the lookout for those puzzling - but useful - idioms! It's a never ending task!

Here are three idiomatic expressions which mention 'cloud'.

• Every cloud has a silver lining

• To be under a cloud

• To have your head in the clouds

Have you ever heard any of these? If not, see if you can work out what they mean by reading the text below.

What a dreamer Mbak Tatik is! She daydreams about this, she imagines that. Sometimes the things she talks about are real. Sometimes they are not. When you see her staring out the window at nothing in particular, you know she has her head in the clouds. But actually some people at the Wisma are a little unhappy with her. Ari Wibowo came to the front office and asked about studying at the Wisma but Tatik had her head in the clouds and didn't persuade him to take the General Course. Yuan, Prima, Siwi - they were all angry with her. But she wasn't under a cloud for long. 'Mas' Ari came back the next day and asked for more information and Yuan, Prima and Siwi just so happened to be hanging out in the front office. So... every cloud has a silver lining!

Can you figure out what the expressions mean?

Try ... before you look at the explanations below!

Here are the definitions:

Every cloud has a silver lining - there are good things even in seemingly bad situations
To be under a cloud - to be under suspicion or to be out of favour
To have your head in the clouds - to daydream or to be unrealistic

Vocabulary Book - 100 Everyday Idioms

Here's a useful book explaining 100 commonly used metaphors (i.e. idioms)

What did you say?
What do you mean?

The metaphors are arranged alphabetically, based on the first noun – if there is one. If there is no noun, then the order is taken from the main word that doesn’t change, such as “backwards” in “bend over backwards” (people sometimes say “lean over backwards”).

I each case there is an explanation of what the idiom means, why or when people use it, plus examples.

Download it here. Slightly bigger file than usual (almost 6MB), hope it's ok for you.

Here's an example from the book:




Any reactions to this book? Was it useful? Write your thoughts or requests for other kinds of book in the COMMENTS section below.

Idioms Ahoy! Why's he talking about Donkeys?

Always on the lookout for those puzzling - but useful - idioms! It's a never ending task!

Here are three idiomatic expressions which mention 'donkey'.

• Donkey work
• For donkey's years
• To talk the hind leg off a donkey

Have you ever heard any of these? If not, see if you can work out what they mean by reading the text below.

If you want to know the Wisma Bahasa gossip, talk to Mas Sugeng because he's been here for donkey's years. In fact he's been here so long he can remember when the Wisma Bahasa was still in Jalan Cenrawasih. If you ask him to tell you stories he'll talk and talk and talk. In fact no one can talk the hind legs off a donkey as well as he can! The teachers think they're so great but it's Mas Sugeng who does the donkey work that makes everything run smoothly at the Wisma Bahasa in the evenings: preparing the classrooms, answering the phone, greeting the students, finding the teachers, and generally keeping an eye on things.

Can you figure out what the expressions mean?

Here are the definitions:

Donkey work - necessary but boring routine work
For donkey's years - for a long time
To talk the hind leg off a donkey - to talk too much