Long time since I walked you through my word zone. Today, let us take up an idiom that I would ask you not to use. Sounds crazy!! True, but this is how you can learn and unlearn. By the way an idiom has an average of three words and to understand its meaning you need to treat all the words together. If you try to understand it word by word, the meaning is lost.
For example, ‘kick the bucket’. Literal meaning, (I mean word by word meaning) tells you to kick the bucket as you would kick the ball. If it is a bucket made of plastic and you are strong, the bucket breaks. Instead, if it is a steel bucket and you kick it out of anger, your leg breaks. Don’t tell me that Anil Kumble is good at that – leg breaks.
But, that is not what it means. It means something else. Kick the bucket means ‘die’. But, don’t use this idiom to convey someone has passed away. It sounds funny. Instead, say John’s uncle passed away. It’s a polite way of getting across the message.
For example, ‘kick the bucket’. Literal meaning, (I mean word by word meaning) tells you to kick the bucket as you would kick the ball. If it is a bucket made of plastic and you are strong, the bucket breaks. Instead, if it is a steel bucket and you kick it out of anger, your leg breaks. Don’t tell me that Anil Kumble is good at that – leg breaks.
But, that is not what it means. It means something else. Kick the bucket means ‘die’. But, don’t use this idiom to convey someone has passed away. It sounds funny. Instead, say John’s uncle passed away. It’s a polite way of getting across the message.
By the way, do you know, how the idiom acquired this meaning? In olden days, when people wanted to commit suicide, they would keep the bucket upside down, stand on it, tie their neck to a rope connected to a hook or an object of that kind. Now to breathe their last, they would kick the bucket and they would have hanged themselves to death.
