In Language
- A film or a story is said to keep you on the edge of your seat, if it is suspenseful or engaging.
- If you nearly fell off your chair, it was because you were very surprised.
- An orchestra awards a musician a chair or seat based on ability. The best player in a particular section will receive "first chair," or the "principal seat." It is also common for this position to be known as 'first stand,' a reference to the portable lectern on which the musicians put their sheet music. However, the person who is first chair in the first violin section is usually referred to as the concertmaster in the USA or leader in the UK.
- Musical chairs is a common party game, and a colloquial expression to describe people shuffling from seat to seat, or around different locations.
- In American slang, to say someone has gotten "the chair" is to say that they have been executed by an electric chair.
- To be on its last leg is an expression that stems from the practice of sawing the ends of chair legs off in previous centuries. It means that it is decrepit and nearing the end of its serviceability.
Read more about this topic: Chair
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“The reader uses his eyes as well as or instead of his ears and is in every way encouraged to take a more abstract view of the language he sees. The written or printed sentence lends itself to structural analysis as the spoken does not because the reader’s eye can play back and forth over the words, giving him time to divide the sentence into visually appreciated parts and to reflect on the grammatical function.”
—J. David Bolter (b. 1951)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)