What's up? [antikvár]

TO THE STUDENT What's Up? is a book about idioms. In fact, "What's up?" is an idiom. An idiom is a group of words that has a special meaning. The meaning of the group of words is different from the meanings of the individual words together. For example, the group of words "What's up?" means "What's new?" or "What's happening?" The word "up" alone does not mean "new" or "happening," but when it's combined with "what's," it means "What's new?" This doesn't mean that every group of words is an idiom. For example, "up the hill" is a group of words, but it doesn't have a special meaning. Each word has its ordinary meaning. In this example, "up" means the opposite of "down." Many of the words used in idioms come from Old English or Middle English, ancestors of the English we use today. Their one-word equivalents often come from Latin or Greek. For example, the Old English words "turn down" mean "reject," a Latin word. Because so many of the words used in idioms are English in origin (not Latin or Greek), idioms are at the heart of the English language. Although idioms often sound less formal than their one-word equivalents, this doesn't mean that idioms are slang or incorrect forms of English. Most idioms are standard forms of expression and are used in literature, magazine and newspaper articles, academic journals, speeches, and radio and television broadcasts, as well as in everyday speech. By doing the exercises in this book, you will learn to understand and use seventy-three idioms. You will practice using idioms in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. You will not only learn the meaning of each idiom, you will also learn: 1. the subjects and objects that go with the idiom. For example, "Judy called up her sister." 2. the words in the idiom that are stressed. For example, in "work on" only "work" is stressed, but in "work out" both words are stressed.