Podcast: Cool as a cucumber

Podcast Inglês Online

Hi, everybody. Hoje eu falo sobre os idioms do inglês cool as a cucumber, free as a bird, hot as fire e mais.

Transcrição

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Today let’s take a look at a number of expressions that use an object or an animal to emphasise a quality. For example, cool as a cucumber. “Cool” here means cool-headed, or someone who can keep their cool even when they’re under a bit of pressure, or stress. I like this idiom; I find it funny – I mean, it says that someone is cool as a… cucumber. And of course, I get it, cucumbers feel pretty fresh and cool, but it still sounds funny. So, for example, you might say that, to your surprise, your friend Annie was cool as a cucumber before her job interview. Are you usually cool as a cucumber?

And here’s one I hear a lot: free as a bird. Are you busy Friday night? Nope, free as a bird. There’s a Supertramp song titled ‘Free as a bird’; go ahead and take a listen. It’s a great song. Anyway, if your English-speaking friend says “I’ve got two tickets to see Rihanna. What are you doing tonight?” you can say “I’m free as a bird.”

And here’s another one that’s pretty straightforward: hot as fire. As you may or may not know, the word hot is used to describe someone who’s very attractive, so you’ll see and hear hot as fire being used to describe people very often. Or you can say it about the weather: “It’s hot as fire outside… thirty three degrees.” Or you could use hot as fire for really spicy food, like a mustard sauce that tastes a bit sweet, but is hot as fire.

And how about this one – blind as a bat? Well, I did a little bit of research and it turns out that bats are not really blind; like the rest of us they can’t see in complete darkness so they have a special trick for finding their way in the dark. That’s how the expression goes, though – blind as a bat. One woman tweeted “I just realised that I can no longer sit in the back row of a college lecture hall… I’m blind as a bat.” Obviously she’s exaggerating – she’s not completely blind. Another one said “My grandma used to tell me to eat my carrots because they were good for my eyes but here I am years later, blind as a bat.” I got the same piece of advice when I was a kid – you should eat carrots ’cause they’re good for your eye sight. Hmm… Not sure that’s true.

There are many more idioms like these in the English language. Brave as a lion, busy as a bee, sly as a fox. Which one is your favourite? Are you blind as a bat when you’re not wearing your glasses? Are you in a relationship now, or are you free as a bird to go out and date? Are you cool as a cucumber when you’re under pressure? Let me know in the comments, and talk to you next time!

Key expressions

• cool as a cucumber
• free as a bird
• hot as fire
• blind as a bat

Vocabulary

straightforward = fácil de entender

mustard sauce = molho de mostarda

sly = ardiloso

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