Phraseology lecture 13 phraseology and phraseological units

A dark horse is actually not a horse but a person about whom no one knows anything definite.

• A dark horse is actually not a horse but a person about whom no one knows anything definite.
• A bull in a china shop: the idiom describes a clumsy person.
• A white elephant – it is a waste of money because it is completely useless.
• The green-eyed monster is jealousy, the image being drawn from Othello.
• To let the cat out of the bag : to let some secret become known.

To bark up the wrong tree (Am) means ‘to follow a false scent; to look for somebody or something in a wrong place; to expect from somebody what he is unlikely to do’.

• To bark up the wrong tree (Am) means ‘to follow a false scent; to look for somebody or something in a wrong place; to expect from somebody what he is unlikely to do’.
• The idiom is not infrequently used in detective stories: The police are barking up the wrong tree as usual, i.e. they suspect somebody who has nothing to do with the crime.
• The ambiguity of these interesting word-groups may lead to an amusing misunderstanding, especially for children who are apt to accept words at their face value.