15 English Expressions & Idioms using 'ALL'

An idiom is an expression whose meaning is not predictable just by looking at its words. In this lesson, I will teach you several idioms that have something in common: they all contain the word “all”. You will learn the meaning of expressions like, “I’m all ears”, “It’s all in your head”, “all shook up”, “All hell broke loose”, “know-it-all”, “pull an all-nighter”, “all in a day’s work”, “not all there”, “for all I know”, and many more. You might recognize some of these from movies or shows, as they are very common expressions used frequently by native English speakers. These will be especially useful in casual conversation with friends and family. Take the quiz on this lesson at https://www.engvid.com/15-engl....ish-expressions-idio

TRANSCRIPT

So, E, I'm going to read this passage to you and... "I'm all ears"? Hi. James from engVid. Today I'm going to use "all" in phrases and idioms, and teach you how you can use them in common speech. And I'm going to try and put them into sections that you will find most useful to help you remember. E writes... Is saying right now: "He's all ears", and I bet you want to know what that means. I'll explain that to you, and I have another seven other idioms. Let's go to the board.

So, E's all ears. Before we even start, let's talk about: What is "all"? What does it mean? Well, generally, it means as much as possible, or it can mean complete or whole. The whole thing; all thing; complete. Excuse me. Or the parts of it. Now, we understand that, what does an "idiom" mean? An "idiom" is basically... It could be a phrase or a clause, but it's a bunch of words that are together that when you hear them, they don't actually make sense by themselves; but if you have the history behind it, you get it.

One of my favourite ones to tell people is: "It's raining cats and dogs." Clearly, dogs and cats don't fall from the sky, so you have to say: "What does that mean?" Well, it means it's a lot of rain. Okay? So, there's a lot of rain coming down. Now, it has an ancient... Not ancient roots. From, like 1600/1700s that there would be so much water coming down that dogs and cats might, like, float away or, you know, be swimming down the streets, so that's: "It's raining cats and dogs."

What does that have to do with what we're doing now? Well, today, we want to look at "all" and how "all" can be used in different idioms to have different meanings. You probably won't know what they mean right away; but by the time I'm done, it shouldn't be a problem.

So, let's look at the number one, the first one: I want to talk about emotional states. So, it's a mental state or an emotional state; how you think or feel. So, number one is: "It's all in your head." That means imaginary; it's not real. If something's all in your head, you go: "Oh, I think I have, like", I don't know. I... I don't want to say it because I don't want to give myself a disease. People might say: "Oh, I think I'm growing four heads." It's like: "It's all in your head. It's your imagination. It's not real. It's not happening. It's not going to happen." Okay? Or: "I think... Oh, I think Beyonc� is going to leave her husband and meet me, because she was on a TV program and she winked twice. That was her code that she wants me." It's in my head; it's not going to happen. Okay? Your friends will say: "You're crazy. It's not happening."

What's another one? We'll go down to number two. Oh, sorry. Before we go here, we'll go here: "All shook up". Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm all shook up. Those of you who like Elvis, that's an Elvis song: "All Shook Up". What does "all shook up" mean? Well, it's to shake... "Shake" means to... To disturb something. In this case, to make it extremely excited. You could be extremely excited if you win the lottery. If I won 20 million dollars, I'd be all shook up, I'd be like: "What am I going to do? I... I... I... How...? How do I get...?" I'm excited. I can also be very worried or disturbed when I'm all shook up. If you get very bad news... My baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, they lost again - I'm all shook up; I'm emotionally disturbed. Okay? And you can be worried as well.

So that's emotional state with "all". "All in your head". Remember we said completely? It's completely in your head. "You're all shook up", it means as much as possible you've been disturbed.

Let's look to the other ones. So, we talked about mental state, your emotional state; let's look at knowledge - how much you can know. All right? So, if "somebody's not all there", you're not all there, it means it's not working properly. Imagine if you had a car with four wheels, but only three tires. They're not all there; something's missing. You need one more tire to make four tires, four wheels. Makes sense. When somebody's not all there, something's wrong in the cabeza. In the head, there's something missing. Maybe half a brain. You know? You got to be careful. […]