English Idioms: a Funny Story

Enjoy an amusing story and learn some common English idioms.

Listen, read, and guess what the idioms mean.  Then check below.

Memory

A woman was having dinner with an elderly friend and the friend’s husband. She noticed that her friend always called her husband pet-names like ‘Honey’, ‘Darling’, and ‘Sweetheart’.

While the husband was out of the room, the woman said, ‘It’s 70 years since you two tied the knot, but you still call him those loving names. That’s wonderful! It must take some doing to keep romance alive for so long.’

Her elderly friend answered: ‘The truth is that his name slipped my mind about ten years ago.’

Meanings

tie the knot – get married

take some doing – require a lot of effort

slip one’s mind – disappear from one’s memory


He suddenly realised that the speaker’s name had
slipped his mind.

Practice: choose the right idiom.

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