ARMED TO THE TEETH, AS THE CROW FLIES, and AT LOGGERHEADS: American English Idioms #5

Welcome to American English Idioms: Lesson 5. In this lesson you have 3 American English idioms to read, listen to, translate, and pronounce in English. Please focus and do your best so that you can learn and improve your knowledge of American English idioms. Don’t forget to use the comments section below to share your thoughts and what you’ve learned today.

Directions 1: Watch the video 2 or more times, and pay close attention to the audio and text.

Directions 2: Read the following text in English, then translate it using the translator on this page into your language if needed. When you finish, feel free to write a comment in the comments section below and let us know how you feel about what you’ve learned, as well as what you’ve learned.

ARMED TO THE TEETH

It is a common saying that one should be well-equipped with the best weaponry to ensure a victory. In academia, it would be important to ensure that your essay or experiment is as thorough as possible so as not to have any flaws. Planning out what you want for your paper can help you determine what type of resources you will need at hand.

The word armed is defined as: provided with weapons. The term to the teeth means: providing something to the fullest extent possible. When put together, it can be inferred that armed to the teeth has a very literal meaning of being well-equipped with weapons. This phrase may be used as a metaphor for someone who is extremely well-prepared in a situation for anything that could happen.

ARMED TO THE TEETH is a term used to describe someone who has multiple weapons on them, hidden or not. Things such as guns, knives, and other weapons you might find in a police officer’s belt are considered part of armament. The armament may be concealed or not which has consequences for the person carrying it. It is often used in a metaphor to refer to people with their own arsenals or collections of weaponry that they have amassed through time and work.

Someone who is armed to the teeth is equipped with as many weapons as possible. This might mean they have more than one type of gun, some knives, and some other types of weapons. They could also be wearing armor and carrying explosives on their person for safety purposes. There are cases where people have gone overboard with being well-equipped for battle, making it difficult to move around because they are so weighed down.

AS THE CROW FLIES

The phrase “as the crow flies” is often used aboard to indicate the shortest path between two points. It’s important to remember that there are roads, highways, and other obstacles in the real world that may not be present on a map.

To navigate from one point to another, we often use a map and directions like “go east three blocks and then south four blocks.” This is because the map and the coordinates (longitude and latitude) of each location are based on a spherical model of planet Earth, which does not accurately describe distances in the real world.

An AS THE CROW FLIES is a distance between two points in a straight line, without regard for roads or other obstacles. This can be useful when measuring the distance between two places.

The phrase “as the crow flies” is an idiom used to describe how long it would take to walk between two points without using roads. The phrase can also be used to mean the most direct route. This is not always possible due to geographical features, such as mountains or rivers. One way that this phrase can be calculated is by measuring the distance on a map, then multiplying by the scale listed on the map.

AT LOGGERHEADS

The following is an excerpt from a discussion between two scientists. It reinforces the idea that when scientists disagree, they become “at loggerheads.”

Scientist A: “I’m not saying that your work is illegitimate, but I am suggesting that you might want to explore other hypotheses.”
Scietist B: “If you’re not bringing any new ideas to the table, then what value do you have?

There is no way that the two men will ever agree. They are at loggerheads; they see each other as antagonists, not friends. The impasse is insurmountable; they are incapable of finding common ground.

The term is generally used to mean a dispute, disagreement, or quarrel. Loggerheads is generally used as a figure of speech to refer to an argument with no obvious resolution. A loggerhead that appears in the English language in the 1500s is a turtle that has a hard shell on its head and neck. Its name originated from sailors who boiled it for food after catching it from the ocean.

It’s a word that means people are at each other’s throats, and there is a lot of disagreement. It also means that the two parties involved have gone to their last point of discussion, and there is nothing left to discuss.

The phrase “at loggerheads” is often used to describe a situation where two people or groups are having difficulties. The term originates from the usage of a wooden mallet, called a loggerhead, which was used by loggers to break up wood. When they were at loggerheads, they were butting heads over an issue and not agreeing. In modern times, the phrase can be interpreted as heated disagreements between two parties that refuse to compromise.