The exact sense and origin of "to stick it to someone"
网页In modern usage, to stick it to someone (often, to the man, representing the establishment) tends to imply attack strongly, vehemently - usually through words or defiant actions, rather than direct physical assault. But give someone stick usually means to tease them (playfully) about something.
A lot of people seem to be 'working for the man'. Who is this guy?
网页2014年8月6日 · The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either passively, openly or via sabotage. (Wikipedia) Stick it to the man is the idiom I'm most familiar with, but there are others. Working for the man in context might mean for a corporation, the government or other …
grammar - "I know a man with a wooden leg named Smith"
网页2020年8月2日 · It is a joke that exploits a common ambiguity in English communication. Obviously, naming a wooden leg is absurd, and so most listeners understand that the intention of Bert's reply, upon hearing it, is to explain that the name belongs to the man. This discrepancy makes Albert's reply into the punchline. Assuming, for argument, that …
Origin of "More X than you can shake a stick at"
网页Davy Crockett’s Tour to the North and Down East of 1835: “This was a temperance house, and there was nothing to treat a friend that was worth shaking a stick at”. A Book of Vagaries by James K Paulding of 1868: “The roistering barbecue fellow swore he was equal to any man you could shake a stick at”.
What is the origin of the phrase "to beat them off with a stick"?
网页2016年12月5日 · Television's young Dobie Gillises have a new girl every week, its young Margies an endless supply of would-be boy friends; the widower in My Three Sons has to beat the women off with a stick. . . . —Ernest Havemann, Men, women, and marriage, 1962 "I hear you have to beat the girls off with a stick." Pierre had a devastating twinkle.
What does “make something stick” mean? - English Language
网页2015年4月14日 · "make something stick" meaning. is one of the basic and good ways to find the meaning of a word. You don't seem to have used it, otherwise you'd have found. make something stick to cause something to be accepted or agreed to . Investigators didn't have the evidence to make the charges stick.
A man who keeps his word - English Language & Usage Stack …
网页2018年2月5日 · A man or woman is said to give their word (about some subject). To give one's word means to promise. Then, that man or woman will either keep their word or not keep it. That means they will respect the promise they made, or not. If they do not keep it, they have broken it. And that's the long and short of this business.
Synonymous idiom for "more x than you can shake a stick at"
网页2016年2月3日 · It's very difficult to search the web for synonymous idioms, at least for me. I found Origin of "More X than you can shake a stick at", but I'm really trying to find a similar phrase to it. We have an overabundance of noun. The only thing I could think of was "we got stacks on stacks", but that's not appropriate for many situations.
English alternative for 'gesture for wise, stick for fool'
网页2020年5月19日 · Various other options might work and in English, "gesture for wise, stick for fool" would always be understood but it would also always be wrong. That means if it really is the best translation, the two languages are so …
etymology - Origins of the current meaning of stick-in-the-mud ...
网页Eighteenth-century occurrences. A Google Books search turns up two examples of "stick in the mud" used metaphorically in the eighteenth century: an item in The Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer of December 1733 that lists, as one of 14 "Malefactors [who] receiv'd Sentence of Death" at the end of the December 8 sessions at the Old Bailey,