Name: English Tutor Nick P Idioms (279) Knock One's Socks Off
Uploaded: 2019-10-07T04:26:46.000Z
Duration: 2 min 23 s
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Hi this is Tutor Nick P and  this is Idioms 279. The idiom today is to knock

Modal verbs - A2

someone's socks off. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. This idiom can

To-infinitive

also be seen as to blow someone socks off. So you can hear it either way. To

knock someone socks off or to blow someone socks off. But I do think

knock is a little more common than blow.  Let's continue. If one person knocks or

blows another person's socks off,  he or she thoroughly you know,  completely

totally impresses or overwhelms someone.  We do have a second meaning here too. A

second meaning can also mean to outperform or outclass someone like in

comparison to the person who is the winner. All right. Let's continue. The idiom

first appeared around the 1800s and originally meant to thoroughly beat

someone up. Thus the original meaning meant to physically harm someone. So like

you or maybe you hit them so much that their clothes are flying off. But we

don't really use that so much anymore.  Now it's it's just like shock of

impressing somebody could possibly knock somebody's clothes off or it

knocks them over and their socks fly off.  Something like that.That's kind of the

idea behind it. Okay.  Today it is mostly means ..  mostly used to

mean to impress or impress a lot. Okay.  So let's look. We have three examples here.

The first example. That dancer really knocked the socks off of the audience

with her performance. Maybe her performance was so good that everybody

loved it. They were thoroughly impressed with it. Or number two here. Her speech

knocked their socks off. Yeah. Maybe somebody gave a great speech and they

really impressed whoever was in the audience. Whoever was there. So she

knocked their socks off. And the third one you know,  a little similar to the

second meaning up here. Nobody was a close second. She knocked the socks off

of the other competitors. Meaning  she kind of outclassed them or

outperformed them. Okay. Anyway.  I hope you got it.  I hope it's clear. Thank you for