To understand a language’s idioms, is to be fluent in the language.  Maybe this isn’t entirely true, but it’s close. When I lived in England, I remember being stumped by the phrase, “it’s like money for old rope.”  I didn’t know if that meant: 1) someone had given me money for old rope–in which case, that was a good thing; or 2) I was paying money for old rope–meaning I was getting ripped off.  As it turns out, the saying “originates from the days of public hangings. It was a perquisite of the hangman to keep the rope used to hang his ‘customer’. The rope, however, was popular with the macabre crowds, so the hangman used to cut the rope up and sell it.”  That still doesn’t tell me whether paying for it a good or bad thing 🙂  This site tells me “if a job Read more…