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funny-peculiar or funny ha-ha Most often heard interrogatively, this expression serves to distinguish between two meanings of the word funny—‘peculiar’ and ‘amusing or humorous.’ In 1938, I. Hay used this expression in a play entitled Housemaster. Since then, funny-peculiar or funny ha-ha has gained currency and is frequently heard today.
know a hawk from a handsaw See PERCEPTIVENESS.
know chalk from cheese See PERCEPTIVENESS.
make head or tail of To make sense of, to understand or decipher; also make heads or tails of. The head and the tail are opposite sides of a coin. Tossing a coin is a common method of deciding by chance; the outcome is determined by which side is up when the coin lands. It is easy to see how a coin landing in such a way that it cannot clearly be called either heads or tails gave rise to the frequently heard negative not make head nor tail of, implying confusion and senselessness.
Pray what is the design or plot? for I could make neither head nor tail on’t. (Henry Fielding, The Author’s Farce, 1729)
|Noun||1.||differentiation - a discrimination between things as different and distinct; "it is necessary to make a distinction between love and infatuation"|
contradistinction - a distinction drawn on the basis of contrast; "sculpture in contradistinction to painting"
dividing line, demarcation, contrast, line - a conceptual separation or distinction; "there is a narrow line between sanity and insanity"
|2.||differentiation - the mathematical process of obtaining the derivative of a function|
|3.||differentiation - (biology) the structural adaptation of some body part for a particular function; "cell differentiation in the developing embryo"|