英语学习笔记

Light and dark

Light in English is associated with happiness. So a face shines with pleasure and eyes shine with excitement or delight. If someone 's face lights up or their eyes light up, they show that they suddenly feel happy. If an atmosphere lightens or a mood lightens, it becomes more relaxed or cheerful than it was.

Darkness is associated with unhappiness and negative feelings.Dark thoughts are gloomy or sinister ones and dark days or dark times are unpleasant times to live through. If someone's face darken or their eye darken or someone's expression darkens, then we know that that person is unhappy, often because they are feeling angry.

Fire and heat

Words associated with fire and heat often suggest anger in English.A heated debate, a heated discussion or a heated conversation is one in which people disagree in an angry way with each other. If you say someone has a fiery temper, you mean that they often get suddenly angry. The word flare means show a bright light in the dark. If you say temper flared, you mean that people became angry with each other.

Similarly violence flares up and troubles flare up. There all mean that problems which existed in the past suddenly become serious again.

However, not all metaphors relating to fire suggest anger. If you feel very embarrassed, your cheeks burn with embarrassment. A blaze is a very bright fire. We talk about a blaze of glory or a blaze of publicity meaning there is a lot of it and it is spectacular.