“Making Heads or Tails of Idioms” was originally an email newsletter developed in February 2010. Prior to that, the newsletter was known under a few different names: “Rema’s Summer of Idioms!”, “Rema’s ‘It’s not Summer Anymore’, Idioms!” and “Rema’s ‘I grew up in this country and still don’t know the Idioms!'” In Fall 2018, Rema shortened the domain name to make it easier to find and HOTidioms.com was born!
More Background: Rema’s passion to look up idioms stemmed from her first real job out of college in Summer 2003. Turns out, business people really like to use idioms in day-to-day language…. and it turns out, she don’t know idioms… at all. So she started looking up the meanings and origins and began to share them with friends (first newsletter subscriber count: 3). It caught on, friends began referring friends, and Rema received feedback that her email was cool enough to be a blog. It was also mentioned in Rachel Bertsche’s “MWF Seeking BFF” in both blog and book format as Rachel goes on to meet Jordan (me!).
NOTE: The same unsubscribing rules apply…
You are currently subscribed to: REMA’s “Making Heads or Tails of Idioms” Newsletter!
To unsubscribe, respond to the email with “unsubscribe” in the subject line.
If you unsubscribe, please know that you will be disliked.
About the author:
Rema grew up in the beautiful state of Michigan where she currently resides. She enjoys quality time with family (including her baby girl!) and friends and rooting for Michigan football. Writing has never been one of Rema’s passions… therefore, there is a bit of copy/paste from Wikipedia from time to time (but it’s always sourced).
HOT Idioms 
Reading MWF Seeking BFF by Rachel B and had to look this up. I have a fondness for idioms, also, that started with my Grandpa saying “Don’t take any wooden nickels!”
I´ve never heard that expression before! Thanks for sharing Mary Beth!
My father-in-law uses that same expression since my husband was a young boy. He’ll be 100 years old in December.
I love this blog already! I also looked it up after a mention in MWF Seeking BFF 🙂 I confess, even growing up speaking English, that I don’t know the origins of many idioms. My German husband is always asking me what the heck they mean so now I can study up and tell him!
I´m glad you like it Megan! I know… I usually feel like a ¨deer in headlights¨when I hear new idioms!
Enjoy and thanks for joining!
This is a great resource for teachers of English as a foreign language (I’m sure you knew that already)! I too am amazed by the number of idioms dropped in a typical day by professional colleagues. What a trip… Thanks as well to MWF Seeking BFF for mentioning this! The site is a dream come true for TEFL teachers.
Thanks for the feedback Alex! I’m glad you have found the site useful and I plan to post a lot more this year! I told Rachel Bertsche (MWF author) about your post and she was psyched!
I can confirm that sometimes you really DO go to dance class!!! What a fun blog, glad I happened to stumble on this tonight – I had no idea you wrote this!
Fashionably late, I see. I am also here after reading about the blog in MWF Seeking BFF. 🙂 I am not just in my late 20s, married and in a new city trying to make a few new bffs, but I am also foreign. I’ve lived in the US for a while and my understanding of idioms has definitely broaden, but I am excited I can catch up with some new lingo here. Thanks!
Need all the two cents I can get !!