[Idiom] question

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bijankosha

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Hello,I want to know what means this phrases or idoms "gone on record","right hand knows what the left hand is doing"&"fall between the cracks"
best regards.
 

Grumpy

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Hello,I want to know what [STRIKE]means this phrases or idoms[/STRIKE] these phrases or idioms mean: "gone on record", "right hand knows what the left hand is doing" & "fall between the cracks" .
best regards.

If someone has "gone on record" as saying or writing something, it means that it has been officially recorded somewhere, or at least is the "public domain". That may be through an interview which has been published in a newspaper, or the person may have written it in an article, or a book, or in an official letter.

The phrase about right and left hands first appeared in the New Testament of the Bible [Matthew 6:3], where Jesus said "But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth". In other words: when doing good things, don't let everyone else know about it. Over the years, the phrase has tended to be used to describe an company or individual who is not well organised; who does not co-ordinate actions well. For example, the production department may have decided to stop making a type of car, but the buying department is still placing orders for the type of wheels required for that type of car. In that case, people would say that "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing". Good practice would be to make sure that any major decision was widely communicated, so that "the right hand knows what the left hand is doing" [and vice versa].

To "fall between the cracks" obviously refers to a small object being lost in the small gap between floorboards. Nowadays, it is used to refer to a situation where something is missed because various people or departments assume that someone else, or another department, is responsible for that something.
 

Tdol

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1 If someone speaks to a journalist off the record, their name will not be mentioned in the article. If they are on record, then they can be quoted and referred to.
2 If the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, different parts of an organisation/family/group are not coordinated and don't know what the others are doing.
3 If you fall between the cracks, the safety/welfare mechanisms in society do not stop you from sliding down or something is not noticed as it goes down.

PS You can search for many idioms here: English Idioms and Idiomatic Expressions - UsingEnglish.com
 
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