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Usage of idiom

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Usage of idiom

by rohitmanglik » Tue Oct 08, 2013 9:38 am
Hi,

I have a very fundamental question. (English is not my native language):

When we have idiom for instance "decide to". What does it mean? Does it mean "to" should be immediately followed by "decide". If we write as "decide something to", will it still be an idiom? Does vice versa is also valid?

PS: I mean about all the idioms, here I took "decide to" just as an example.
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by theCodeToGMAT » Tue Oct 08, 2013 10:06 am
Rohit, the idiom construct depends upon the meaning of the sentence.. It's NOT necessary that the construct may always exactly be "decide to".... at times, it may be "decide.... to..."
Last edited by theCodeToGMAT on Tue Oct 08, 2013 10:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by rohitmanglik » Tue Oct 08, 2013 10:09 am
I mean to say, does in both the scenarios, it will be called as idiom?
theCodeToGMAT wrote:Rohit, the idiom construct depends upon the meaning of the sentence.. It's NOT necessary that the construct may always be "decide to".
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by theCodeToGMAT » Tue Oct 08, 2013 10:16 am
rohitmanglik wrote:I mean to say, does in both the scenarios, it will be called as idiom?
theCodeToGMAT wrote:Rohit, the idiom construct depends upon the meaning of the sentence.. It's NOT necessary that the construct may always be "decide to".
Yes..
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by rohitmanglik » Tue Oct 08, 2013 11:39 am
Thanks Rahul :)
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by [email protected] » Tue Oct 08, 2013 1:40 pm
Hi rohitmanglik,

Idioms are the "little rules" in the English language; a number of them will show up in Sentence Correction questions on the GMAT.

Most idioms are based on "pairs" of words:

For example, in a comparison, the word MORE is followed (at some point) by the word THAN (even if there are other words between them).

eg The employee worked MORE hours THAN his co-worker.

As you continue to study SCs, it's important to read the explanation for EVERY SC that you do, even if you get it correct. You'll learn about idioms that you didn't even notice in the original sentence, but can help you later to answer other SCs.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
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