ENGLISH FOR INTERMEDIATE STUDENTS

A. CRIES AND MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF ANIMALS
Very close life with Nature in old, old times had taught man many
useful things. Among others it also enabled him to enrich his vocabulary
and learn many colourful expressions. Most of them have become
proverbial.
A PIG grunts when it eats and squeals when it is in pain. Likewise
man utters the same sounds. He grunts when he is angry or squeals with
pain like a stuck pig if he is a coward. When a man keeps his home dirty
we say that he lives in a regular pigsty. When a person is living in a very
small room, we say that he or she is like a pig in a poke.
An Englishman buys a pig in a poke. And again, an Englishman says
of a very small room that there is hardly room in it to swing a cat.
Unreasonable, obstinate people are called “pigheaded”. An American
gets the wrong pig by the tail when he puts the blame on an innocent
person.
All over the world a man under the influence of wine or whisky
makes a pig of himself. People who undeservingly live in ease and luxury
live like pigs in clover. Pigs might fly and other similar wonders might
happen if we were to believe in them. Just as it is not possible to teach a
pig to play on a flute, no one expects each weekday to be a holiday, and
this is why we don’t kill a pig every day. Little girls wear pigtails.
The COCK appears in a great many useful phrases. An early riser is
always up at cock-crow. And when a man’s position of priority remains
undisputed, he is cock of the walk; or he rules the roost. His mental
attitude is familiarly described as cocky. If he is irritatingly self-confident,
he is cocksure.
A very meek and obedient husband is a henpecked husband. When a
man tells a glaringly untrue account, especially of his brave action, we
call it a cock-and-bull story. We have a wise proverb: Don’t count your
chickens before they are hatched.
Some people like wine, some whisky and others like cocktails. As
the old cock crows, so doth the young. And the saying, every cock crows
on his own dunghill in French is “un coq est bien fort sur son fumier.”
Male birds are called cocks, we say a cock-robin and a cock-sparrow.
The cock’s crow is called by children “cock-a-doodle-doo”.
We cock the ears in attention, and cock the nose to show our contempt.
A person cocks his eye or winks. One may cock one’s hat when one puts
it on aslant. A cockalorum is a self-important little man.
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