Once in a blue moon
(and other colourful idioms)
- Answers to the exercise

    GROUP ONE - BLUE
    1. You can argue with me until you're blue in the face but I won't change my mind!
    2. The news of Jack's resignation came right out of the blue. It took us all by surprise.
    3. She's the teacher's favourite - his little blue-eyed girl.

      4.
    GROUP TWO - RED
    1. We heard a strange noise in the office last night. So, we phoned the police. They came along, quietly entered the building and caught the thief red-handed.
    2. When my mother came to visit me in Japan, I took her along to the City Hall to meet some of the staff. She was amazed when they gave her the red carpet treatment.
    3. We overspent our budget last year and now we're a few thousand pounds in the red.

    GROUP THREE - GREEN
    1. I hear you're going to Hawaii next week. That's great. I'm really green with envy.
    2. My brother-in-law's got green fingers. You should see all the flowers in his garden, and as for his rose bushes... fantastic. (In American English: he's got a green thumb).
    3. We were driving along this narrow mountain road, and George was feeling pretty bad. Then someone offered hm a bacon sandwich, and he just went green. It's a wonder he didn't throw up.

    GROUP FOUR
    1. They still haven't been able to get any tenants for that new office building they built last year. It's turned into a real white elephant.
    2. Sometimes there are situations when you have to tell a few white lies to save face.
    3. What's wrong? You're trembling and you're as white as a sheet. Have you had an accident, or something?

    BLUE

    UNTIL YOU'RE BLUE IN THE FACE:
    This expression means that somebody is doing something for a long time and with a lot of effort, but getting no result. We especially use this phrase with verbs like talk, argue, discuss: You can discuss these issues with the management till you're blue in the face, but they won't listen.

    (IT) CAME (RIGHT) OUT OF THE BLUE: 
    We can use this expression when something that happens is a total surprise. A similar expression is a bolt out of the blue. His resignation letter was like a bolt out of the blue.

    BLUE-EYED GIRL / BLUE-EYED BOY:
    I don't think many students  would like to be called the teacher's blue-eyed boy/girl. It refers to one student that the teacher likes and is always kind to. Blue-eyed boys and girls are usually disliked by the other students. It can also be used in the workplace: the manager's blue-eyed boy/girl.

RED
    CATCH SOMEONE RED-HANDED:
    If, for example, a teacher sees a student smoking behind the school building, the teacher can walk up to him/her and say: "Right. I've caught you red-handed!" This means that the student has been seen and caught right at the moment of committing the act. This phrase is almost always used with the verb, catch.

    THE RED CARPET:
    When the Queen, President, or other VIPs visit a place, people sometimes lay out a red carpet for them to walk on. If we bring out the red carpet or give someone the red carpet treatment, it means we treat them like a VIP (Very Important Person). When my mother visited Ena City Hall, people bowed to her and gave her presents, and made her feel that she was somebody very special. They didn't actually put a red carpet on the ground, but we can still say that they gave her the red carpet treatment.

    IN THE RED:
    Business people will know this phrase very well. If you have money in your (bank) account, you are in the black. If  you have overspent your account and owe the bank money, you are in the red.

GREEN
    GREEN WITH ENVY:
    This means very envious （うらやましい）. If you want to read a theory about the relationship between envy and green, click here.

    GREEN FINGERS/A GREEN THUMB:
    A person with green fingers (British English), or a green thumb (American English) is good at gardening and getting plants to grow.

    GO GREEN:
    When somebody starts to feel sick and wants to vomit （吐き出す）, we can say that they've gone green. By the way, please remember that we can use the verb, go,  when we talk about changing colour: my hair is starting to go grey, the leaves go brown in autumn.

WHITE
    A WHITE ELEPHANT:
    A white elephant refers to something that has cost a lot of money, but is totally useless.   For example, if a school spends a lot of money on a video recording studio that the teachers and students never use, we can call it a white elephant.

    A WHITE LIE:
    A white lie is a small lie that doesn't do any harm. For example, telling people you're 35 when your real age is 40 is a white lie.

    WHITE AS A SHEET:
    We can say  white as a sheet to describe how someone might look after they've been scared or had a shock: when she heard about the accident, she went as white as a sheet. There is another expression, white as snow, but this purely descriptive and does not have the nuance of shock: Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow.

    We hope you've enjoyed this week's colourful lesson. I'm sure there are lots of colour idioms in your language, too. Some may be very similar to the English expressions, and some may be different, but that's one of the things that makes learning a langauge interesting.

     There are many more lessons on this web-site. Please click below if you want to try some them:
    Bob's One-Point Weekly Lesson Archive

    © Robert E. Jones, 2006