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Continued from Part 1…
Often when a police officer arrests someone they twist the arms of the person behind their back to put handcuffs on. In English, we use the phrase “twist someone’s arm” to mean when someone is talked into doing something they don’t want to do. Imagine you and your partner want to have dinner out. You want to go to your favorite Chinese restaurant, but your partner pesters you until you agree to go to an Italian restaurant instead. Later, you complain to a friend: “I wanted to go out for Chinese but my partner twisted my arm and we went out for Italian.”
A “pain in the neck” can hurt a lot and be very difficult to live with; you just want it to go away. In the same way, a person who is a “pain in the neck” is very annoying and hard to get rid of. You might complain to a colleague about someone in the office who doesn’t leave you alone to do your work. She agrees, “Yes, that guy is always being a pain in the neck.”
The cheeks are the fleshy part of the face or buttocks. A “cheeky” person is often bold or rude to others, especially to people who are more senior. It doesn’t have to have a bad meaning, though. Some people who are cheeky are just being playful, like children are. If your younger teenage brother makes fun of you, you might not get angry, but you will warn him: “Don’t be cheeky!” (Rob Horn)
This article was provided by The Japan Times Alpha.