[Idiom] etymology and meaning of bang up against; bang-up

Status
Not open for further replies.

Annakrutitskaya

New member
Joined
May 10, 2013
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Russian
Home Country
Russian Federation
Current Location
Luxembourg
Dear Teachers,

Please, help me to understand the meaning and the way both idioms are constructed, why this or that additional verb is used with them - the logical meaning behind them, so I could understand the difference, which is so big, and how to use them correctly.

1. Bang up - means "to crash" (skip the version about the jail) - He banged up his car in the race.

2. Bang up against smth - means "severely run into something", correct?

3. Any successor system will bang up against the same difficulties - any system will be crashed because of the difficulties?

4. We ran bang up against more trouble - we unexpectedly faced even more trouble? Why do we use the verb "ran" here and how is it combined with "bang up against"?

5. They came bang up against fierce opposition - they unexpectedly ran into a fierce opposition? why do we use "came" here?

6. David did a bang-up job baking the birthday cake - meaning that he did a succesfull job baking the cake?

Thank you!
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Rover_KE

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jun 20, 2010
Member Type
Retired English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
Welcome to the forums.:-D

'He was banged up in jail' is a well-known idiom, but you told me to skip that.

According to the Free Dictionary (click on the underlined words), only #1 and perhaps #2 are idiomatic — though rarely used in my experience — whilst the other expressions containing 'bang' are non-standard or slang terms.

#4 is sometimes expressed as 'We ran slap-bang into more trouble'.

I would recommend that you don't bother using any of these terms. They are not common, and many more elegant alternatives can always be found.

Rover
 
Last edited:

Annakrutitskaya

New member
Joined
May 10, 2013
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Russian
Home Country
Russian Federation
Current Location
Luxembourg
Dear Rover_KE,
Thank you for your help and for the editing of my post.
Could you, please, name some more elegant alternatives? I would really appreciate it.

Initially, I saw "bang up against" in a book "A Battle of Bretton Woods" and there it is used as "any successor system will bang up against same difficulties".
Thank you!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top