Idioms from entertainment

The world's most colourful expressions come from the entertainment world, in any language in any country where an entertainment industry thrives.

An “actor” or “actress,” for instance, simply means someone who performs in a role.  But, when you”act a part,” you are actually hiding your real feelings.

Sometimes, an idiom can be used to mean the exact opposite while using exactly the same words.  For instance, an “act of God” can mean an unforeseen and damaging event, or a favourable divine intervention.

An idiom can also mean the same actions, but by entirely different doers.  The idiom to “act up” when applied to sentient beings, means to “misbehave.”  When applied to insentient beings, it means to “malfunction.”

To “act on” or to “act upon” is to take action on something because of something else that you already know.  Thus, if your father knows you have no money, you can ask him to act on the problem.

If one does not know anything of this nature and simply does something, then he is merely doing something.  (In this case, you simply ask your father to give you money.)

Some people believe that certain little words (the, an, with) are a nuisance and “should be shot,” but let me give you a few examples why you should “hold the trigger.”

To “catch somebody in the act” is to come across somebody while he or she is doing something wrong.  

To catch somebody “on” the act is to handcuff a criminal on top of the Royal Metropolitan Stage while Cardinal Pirelli is singing the last solo of La Traviata.

To catch somebody “with” the act is to catch Cardinal Pirelli as he sneaks out your door with a copy of “La Traviata.”

So, be careful with those little words.

To “get in on the act” is to intrude, or to copy somebody, for a hoped-for advantage.  You could imagine how the phrase was born in showville, to give another way of saying it “stealing the show.”

To “get one's act together” or “to put your act together” is to become organized.  Again, you can imagine a scatterbrained performer who, until performance night, still had no idea which costume goes with which number.

Irony is a special weapon of language in the entertainment business.  The chummy idiom “old pal's act” actually stands for any form of nepotism, or favouritism to a friend, especially in business.

To “put on an act” is to pretend ostentatiously, as opposed to simply acting.

To ask an adult to “act one's age” is proper enough because you are asking him to behave like an adult.  (To ask a child to stop pouring ketchup in his ear, don't resort to idioms.)

One quite vivid idiom is to “read the riot act.” When you say that your mother is downstairs reading the riot act to the cat, then she is angrily telling the cat to stop doing something bad, such as wearing Hollywood clothes.

“Hollywood,” in an example of lexical evolution, also means “flashy or vulgar.” Thus when you find yourself in Hollywood clothes at a formal dinner, you hope an act of God would happen that very instant.