somniloquy I once had my security clearance suspended for chatting with my squad-mate while asleep. The problem seems to have been that he was speaking in albanian. We had a few days off, then some daytime chats with the military intelligence guys who had actually snuck into our room and recorded us. It was darned entertaining. It seemed that I reminded him of his grandfather who spoke albabian, with whom he was discussing fishing trips, while I responded in poetry and prose(which the m.i. guys thought to be some sort of code---really funny). Have you ever heard a recording of yourself talking while asleep?
That might be scary. I've waked myself up by talking to someone in my dreams, but that's off topic. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
"Dish" is a verb as well as a noun. When you serve food to several people, especially in an institutional setting like a cafeteria, you are "dishing out" the food. "Dish out" then came to be used metaphorically, in the sense of "dishing out" gossip, insults or physical punishment. "When my brother found out that those bullies were harassing me, he really dished it out to them. They were all bleeding, and one of them was limping. They won't bother our family again." "Dish on" is simply a new version of the phrase, used specifically for slander or any kind of gossip, which is directed at a third party, rather than the object of the insult. "John was really dishing on you at the staff meeting. You'd better start coming to these meetings."
No, it really is "dish." As I noted, it is derived from usage of the noun "dish" as a verb. Originally it was "to dish out food," then it was generalized to dishing out insults. Ultimately it was attached to the preposition "on"; to "dish on" someone is to assault them with insults, either personally or in the company of others. "Dis" is a contraction of various words such as "disrespect" and "disparage."
Another idiom is "dishing out the dirt". Destroying someone's character by passing on some rumour, or talking about something they did in the past. The Free Dictionary has a good definition:
"In the world" is an idiom. What in the world is taking so long? You only had to change your shoes but it took you ten minutes! Your sister said she'd meet me in Dinkeyville. Where in the world is that? I can't find it on any map. Why in the world did you take the car to school today? You knew that the bridge would be closed.
"What in the world....." and "What on earth....." mean the same thing. You can say "What in the world is taking so long? " or "What on earth is taking so long? " "What on the earth is taking so long?" is not a correct sentence.
Everyone would understand it, but it's such an awkward use of the idiom that it would identify a non-native speaker. "Why on earth" is acceptable, although most Americans would prefer to say "why in the world?" "Where on earth" is perfectly good, but on this side of the Atlantic most of us would prefer "where in the world?" And by the way... We Americans have become so coarse in our speech that you might hear "What the hell is taking so long? Where the hell is that? Why did you do that?" In fact, these days, in colloquial speech you're just as likely to hear "What the fuck, where the fuck, why the fuck?"
"Heck" is a euphemism for "hell," just as "gosh" is for "God" and "Jiminy Cricket" for "Jesus Christ." Today we don't use too many euphemisms in American English.
The term for that kind of euphemism is a "minced oath". There is a quite amusing section in the wikipedia article under that title. Mince is used in the same sense in the phrase "Don't mince words", which instructs the hearer to say plainly what they mean. A similar idiom is "Don't beat about the bush", an odd sounding phrase.
A hunter who beats around the bush instead of actually beating the bush does not really want to catch any birds.
You don't go to a barber shop to cut your own hair! You go there in order to have it cut professionally by a barber. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! "Hair" is an unusual word. It can be used to mean one single hair, but it also can mean all of the hair on your head, all of the hair on a dog, etc. We don't usually use the plural "hairs" unless we're talking about a very small number of specific hairs: "I have two hairs that grow out of my nose and get very long. So I have to cut them once a week." We also use the word to differentiate between different kinds of hairs. "Most of the hairs in my beard have turned grey and are not very strong, but a few of them are still brown and they have become very stiff and strong. When I shave I have to give them special attention." We don't say, "The hairs on my head need to be trimmed." We say, "My hair needs to be trimmed."
Very nearly the same. Auxiliary means something which helps but is not an intrinsic part of some greater whole. Subsidiary means something separate which performs some lesser function within a greater whole. Wikipedia gives a very good definition of an auxiliary force: An auxiliary force is an organized group supplementing but not directly incorporated in a regular military or police entity. It may comprise either civilian volunteers undertaking support functions or additional personnel directly performing military or police duties, usually on a part-time basis. An auxiliary hospital is a hospital in war time, staffed largely by volunteer nurses, which takes on patients who do not require expert medical care. It helps the General Hospital by taking some of its workload. A subsidiary factory of an aircraft manufacturer might be a separate factory owned by that manufacturer which just makes seats.
Lunge is to move forward swiftly in a threatening manner. Taser is an electronic gun, used by police to stun people. The company that made it is called Taser. They have an odd explanation as to how they arrived at the name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift_and_His_Electric_Rifle
