No, it means too important to interfere with or change.
Help with English
- Thread starter Saint
- Start date
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Sure.
Seems to be a hyperbolic and humorous way to make that point.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
It's a fairly familiar phrase for some of us.
I know it's familiar. I was just thinking about the origin.
Might the idea be originally to conceal oneself behind another person or persons (under the outer clothing) and so steal a march?
There is an Abe Lincoln speech in 1848
"But the gentleman from Georgia further says we [Whigs] have deserted all our principles, and taken shelter under General Taylor's military coat-tail,....................."
https://www.etymonline.com/word/coat-tail
"To take advantage of somebody" often means to do them harm.So the two expressions are quite different.
It's like "drafting" in car racing. You "take advantage" of the guy in front by putting in less effort yourself, but you don't necessarily hold him back. It also gives you the potential to "leap-frog" ahead of him.
RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
no
by being around the person who is achieving or who is being recognized and so by being around that person you are being assigned or using(allowing to be assigned to you) other peoples opinion of their success to benefit yourself.
"taking advantage of" has no value of an atmosphere or surrounding perceptions(of other people).
it is directly personal to be in direct removal of some type of personal position(value of the self), be it emotional physical or financial or romantic etc...
when placed in the 1st position/person
"you have been/are riding on my coat tails"
still does not literally imply the person is taking something away from the other.
while some concepts of English appear simple compared to some other languages, other parts of the language is extremely complex.
however, that higher level of complexity is rarely used in day to day language because peoples vocabulary.
peoples vocabulary's differ greatly.
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
The crux. The bone of contention. The essence. The thing that's important here.
Nice going, explaining an idiom with another idiom.
It means the point at which things become stuck, usually in a discussion, e.g. where you're trying to reach compromise. It's actually a fairly literal idiom.
If you are trying to reach a deal that has 10 individual points to be agreed, you could agree on 9 but that last one might prove difficult. That point would be the sticking point as far as concluding the deal is concerned: it is holding up the overall agreement. Resolve the sticking point (so that you are no longer stuck) and you can progress again.
Bone of contention, yes, but not the others. The crux, what's important, may not be a sticking point at all, say, in negotiations, but rather some rather less important matter that is holding up the agreement.
RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
"The Bone of Contention was not the Sticking point, however the crux of the matter was as yet to be uncovered"
ethereal meaning running as subtext or narrative is quite a normal aspect in more advanced English.
it is used quite extensively by well known writers like
Lord of The Rings
Harry Potter
it appears almost a lost art in US literature which is sad because of the heavy leaning on language immersion that the US has to other language cultures.
In the US south some of the more traditional English Writers still have it as a prominent skill.
it has been used quite masterfully in a conversion from literal to visual in some new US African American TV Series.
Genocidal power & control dysfunction exercised as a method of education tends to destroy the art of language & culture.
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In the US, yes, they are the same.
In the UK "corn" could be referring to any one of the cereal crops such as wheat, maize, barley etc. And typically an area would refer to their most common crop of these as corn and it would be known which one was being referred to. That said, even in the UK we refer to corn on the cob, popcorn, sweet corn etc, which are all maize products.