“Wow! This pizza is really good! Is it from any of the shops I know?”
“I don’t think so. A friend of mine has opened a new pizza place on RP road. It’s very close to your favourite Udipi restaurant.”
“I need to let my friends know about this place, then. Tell your friend that the pizza is absolutely fantastic.”
“He’ll be very happy to hear that! Would you like to have another slice? As you can see, we’ve plenty left.”
“I don’t think so. I’m good.”
“You’re good? Didn’t you say that ‘I’m good’ is the standard response you give in informal contexts when someone asks you how you are?”
“That’s right! When someone asks you how you are doing, you can say, ‘I’m doing good’ or ‘I’m good’. What you mean is you’re doing fine. But you can also say, ‘I’m good’ when a person asks if you want any more of something.”
“I see. When you say, ‘I’m good’, what you mean is that you’ve had enough. You’re full.”
“That’s right! It’s a very informal way of saying ‘No, thank you’! It’s an expression mostly used in American English.”
“I see. I’m going to make some coffee. Would you like some?”
“I’m good.”
“You know what? I know someone who loves pizza. Prabha! Maybe, I should invite her over, and the three of us can have a…”
“Please, don’t do that! It’ll be pretty awkward. I don’t think she likes me at all.”
“Really? What makes you think that?”
“Because every time I say or do something, she looks daggers at me. She always…”
“Looks daggers at you? What are you talking about?”
“Do you know what a dagger is?”
“Of course, I do. Isn’t it a small knife that people used to carry in the old days. It’s usually very sharp and can be used to kill people.”
“Very good. Therefore, when you look daggers at someone, you’re looking very sharply or angrily at them.”
“The look suggests that you’d like to kill the individual.”
“Yes, that’s right! Here’s an example.
The wife looked daggers at the husband when he started making fun of her father in front of her friends.”
“That’s a stupid thing to do. How about this example?
When the principal caught the students smoking in the bathroom, she looked daggers at them.”
“Sounds good. If you think you’re going to get me to change my mind by looking daggers at me, forget it.”
“Change your mind about what? What are you talking about?”
“That was just another example. I’ll leave in a few minutes. So, you can go ahead and call your friend, Prabha.”
“No, no! You don’t have to go.”
“I think I’d better. Maybe you should pack a couple of slices of the pizza. I’ll snack on them later.”
“Snack on them? Can the word ‘snack’ be used as a verb?”
“It certainly can. When you ‘snack on something’, you usually eat something between meals. My friend snacks on fruit in the afternoon.”
“My father likes to snack on fried stuff.”
“Not good for health.”
“That’s what my mother keeps telling him.”
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