Page 3 - IDIOMS - Y

• Yes – man.
Someone who always agrees with people in authority is a yes.man.
• Yesterday’s man or Yerterday’s woman.

Someone, especially a politician or celebrity, whose career is over or on the decline, is yesterday’s man or

women.
• You are what you eat.
This is used to emphasies the importance of a good diet as a key to good health.
• You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

This means that it is easier to persuade people if you use polite arguments and flattery than if you are

confrontational.
• You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.
Somethings you can choose, but others you cannot, so you have to try to make the best of what you have

where you have no choice.
• You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

This idiom means you can offer something to someone, like good advice, but you cannot make them take it.
• You can say that again.
If you want to agree strongly with what someone has said, you can say ‘You can say that again’ as a way of

doing so.
• You can’t fight City Hall.

This phrase is used when one is so cynical that one doesn’t think one can change their Representatives. The
phrase must have started with frustration towards a local body of government.
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