All he does is sneeze over his shoulder and he is as fit as fiddle

[JACEK1]

Hello all users!


There is a man in our office who behaves as if he were a real commando. Whenever it rains early in the morning, I quickly change into my dry set of clothes. Each time it rains or buckets with rain, he comes to the office dripping wet early in the morning, saying: "Listen. I am not afraid to sit all eight hours, wet to the skin. When I come to think of it, water was created for mankind, so why would it do any harm to me?". That's what his philosophy is all about. Besides, his immune system is very good at scaring off all kinds of kinds of throat illnesses.


Now I would like to say how he reacts to all sorts of bad weather, especially rain.


All he does is sneeze over his shoulder and he is as fit as fiddle.


He is unaffected by the weather.


What do you think of the sentence in question?


Thank you.

 

[teechar]

All he [STRIKE]does[/STRIKE] might ever do is sneeze over his shoulder; [STRIKE]and[/STRIKE] he's always as fit as fiddle.

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[JACEK1]

I understand "sneeze over his shoulder" to mean "shrug off" or "treat as something unimportant". Is "sneeze over his shoulder" often encountered in everyday speech?

 

[teechar]

Given the context, I assumed it was meant in its literal sense. :roll:

 

[JACEK1]

Yes, it may apply literally to this colleague of mine. I know for a fact that he only took 4 days off from work during all his career because of some sort of a common cold or runny nose. He has worked for more than 35 years now.

 

[GoesStation]

I understand "sneeze over his shoulder" to mean "shrug off" or "treat as something unimportant". Is "sneeze over his shoulder" often encountered in everyday speech?

I don't think I've ever heard or seen it before now.