Usage: Al is the only one in his family who hasn’t gone to college. He’s the only one who doesn’t have a proper job. He’s considered to be the black sheep of the family.
Meaning: Very beaten up and bruised. Bruised is when you have dark blue/black marks on your body from hitting an object hard or being hit by another person.
Interesting fact: waving a white flag dates back to war time. When one army was losing and they were afraid of losing more men, they waved a white piece of material in the air to show they wanted to stop fighting.
Usage: While I was arguing with my mom about the party I waved a white flag. There was no point in arguing. She wasn’t going to change her mind.
The key to speaking more like a native English speaker is to use and understand everyday English expressions. There’s slang, which you’ve already been introduced to, and then there are idioms. Both are very fun ways to boost your English vocabulary and cultural knowledge. Idioms are expressions that cannot be taken literally (exactly). They are metaphorical. For example, if a person is “green with envy,” their bodies aren’t the color of a lizard – it’s just a phrase. It means that they’re jealous. The English language is full of idioms just like this.
English is an extremely colorful language. It has many ways of expressing the same ideas, so having a diverse vocabulary is important. This diversity is the same for idioms. One of the most popular themes for idioms is color. Color is used everywhere in the world to convey (give) meaning, and symbolizes different things in different countries. For example, in the US the color of death and mourning is black whereas in China it’s white. Quite often a color symbolizes a feeling or state of mind. Other times, we simply use color in expressions to brighten up our language and make it more interesting.
