The word smell is part of several English phrases.

Here are some of them:

Smell blood -discern weakness in an opponent.

Smell a rat - suspect treachery or deception.

Smell the roses - enjoy or appreciate the small things of life.

Many of us have come across the term country cousin either in a book/magazine article or in conversation.

Simply put, country cousin refers to an unsophisticated individual or a rural person new to the ways of the city.

The origins of this popular term date back to the late 18th century.

Several Indian languages have a similar term. For instance, halli gowda in Kannada has the same meaning.

A phrase used more in the U.S. than elsewhere, skid row refers to a run down part of a large city.

We were horrified the first time we saw the skid row in downtown Los Angeles one early morning in the late 1990s - the whole area was in a dilapidated condition and filled with a lot of homeless folks sleeping on the sidewalks, some people seemed to be drunk and a few were definitely mentally ill.

We were too stunned and for a moment doubted whether we were in the United States.

Other big cities in the U.S. like Continue Reading…

If you are seeing pink elephants, it ain’t good.

Ain’t good at all.

Because pink elephant is an euphemism for drunken hallucinations.

Pink elephant is a phrase that is nearly a century old.

One of the earliest references to pink elephant is in Jack London’s autobiographical novel John Barleycom published in 1913.

Like an uxorious husband, we are inordinately fond of Latin.

We’ve been dropping Latin phrases into our spoken and written English for as long as we can remember.

Besides making us seem smarter than we really are, Latin has a certain cachet that plain vanilla English lacks.

SearchIndia.com will bring you some of our favorite Latin expressions.

Let’s start with in vino veritas.

In vino veritas translates into English as there is truth in wine, a mid-16th century proverbial saying.

In vino veritas means that people are likely to be honest under the influence of alcohol.

This Latin expression goes back to ancient Greece and is attributed to the lyric poet Alcaeus (c620-580 BC) from the island of Lesbos.