Sherlock Holmes and The Nine-Dragon Sigil

English Idioms

An idiom is ... a group of words established in general usage with a meaning you can’t take straight from the words themselves, for example, English speakers say someone is ‘pulling my leg’. To pull someone’s leg means to tease them by telling them something untrue.

Or, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’ means ‘stay quiet, avoid restarting a conflict’.

Because it arises from a society over perhaps centuries an idiom may be incomprehensible in straight translation. As in all languages, there are some thousands of idioms in English. Here are ones used in Sherlock Holmes And The Nine-Dragon Sigil:

‘What’s it got to do with the price of tea in China?’ Expression denoting an irrelevance or non sequitur in the current discussion.

‘When the chips are down’. At the final, critical moment; when things really get difficult, when no more choices can be made. This idiom may have derived from the card-game poker, and may not have come into widespread use until the 1930s.

To strike paydirt. In California’s gold rush of 1849, to strike paydirt was to dig until you hit dirt that would pay - soil with gold in it. Idiomatically, to find something valuable, e.g. a scholar who makes a valuable discovery may say s/he has struck pay dirt.

To do a bunk (informal). Make a hurried or furtive departure or escape.

At daggers drawn. If two people (two countries, etc.) are at daggers drawn, they are in a state of extreme unfriendliness and do not trust each other.

‘Brevity is the soul of wit’. Shakespeare in ‘Hamlet’ wittily has the garrulous Lord Polonius state: ‘Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief...’ yet he usually went on and on (and on).

The Quick and the Dead. Archaic and biblical - ‘quick’ means ‘alive’ or ‘living’, not ‘speedy’.

Take the bull by the horns. To confront a problem head-on and deal with it openly. Based on the idea that holding a bull by its horns is both a brave and direct action.

Horns of a dilemma. Unable to decide between two things because either could bring bad results.

Be caught with your pants/trousers down. To be discovered doing something that you did not want other people to know about.