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I can’t get anything to grow on my balcony!” Her parsley, chives and cilantro are so plentiful that she shares them with all her neighbors.Īs she gives a bunch of fresh herbs and flowers to you in the elevator one day, you say, “These came from your balcony garden? Wow, you really have a green thumb. Her roses and begonias are big and fragrant. Let’s say the balcony of a neighbor’s apartment has a beautiful flower and herb garden. Someone with a green thumb is really good at growing plants. It takes a green thumb to grow beautiful roses like the ones pictured at the Chelsea Flower Show in London May 2014. And if that thumb is green – even better! So, it is a good thing that our hands are designed to have only one thumb. You might say, “What is wrong with me today? I’m all thumbs!” You’re in the kitchen cooking dinner and you keep dropping things - the spices, the broccoli, the knife. We say they are all thumbs.Īnyone can be all thumbs. In fact, that is how we describe people who are clumsy.

Two or three thumbs on a hand might make doing things hard. No matter how you use your thumb, each hand has only one. This expression can also be used for things that you don’t respect, for example a type of literature or art or music, or even a law. Thumbing your nose at someone is showing a person disrespect and disregard. In fact, she could thumb her nose at him. If this woman had control of her own money, she would not be under this man’s thumb. The woman’s health gets worse and worse, but she can’t do anything about it. Soon, he does not buy her medicine or doctor appointments. He says he will take care of all her finances while she is ill. The relative wants to inherit the woman’s money. When a person is ruled by another, completely controlled by someone else, we say the person is under the other’s thumb.įor example, a sick woman may find herself under the thumb of a greedy relative. A rule of thumb is a general principle developed through experiments rather than scientific studyĪnother power thumb expression, is to be under someone’s thumb which is not a good place to be.

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These are not rules about how to use your thumb. The first power thumb expression is the rule of thumb. The thumb is so important that we have a couple phrases to express its power. Scientists say without our opposable thumbs, humans might not have survived.

Opposable thumbs also allow us to grab and pick up things.

Our opposable thumbs, as we call them, allow us to work with our fingers. Its development was as important an event in man’s growth as his success in learning how to walk upright. You could say the thumb made us humans what we are. But today, let’s focus on the wonderful things. Of course, human hands have also done some not so wonderful things. With it, we humans have done many wonderful things. Now the VOA Learning English program Words and Their Stories.Įach week we explore the meaning and origin of American English expressions.