Riding the Coattails

Hi there folks,

Trust you’re all keeping well and in good spirits. Do words make you happy? They have a great effect on me. If I find a word or phrase I like, I want to sink my teeth into it. Ah yes, vampire propensities.

Today I want to take a look at a few sayings.

Riding the coattails

I get a lovely picture in my head of long coattails from a suit jacket hailing from at least a hundred years ago. It’s got to be black. A little imp is hanging on, and getting the ride of his life.

Fanciful image aside, what does it mean to “ride the coattails”? Any ideas? Think of a free ride (figuratively speaking), not having to do a lot of work, enjoying a situation where someone else has done the hard work. Like in my image of someone holding onto the coattails, the person wearing them is the one doing the walking or travelling. All the imp has to do is hold on and be carried along.

Praising to the skies

This one’s pretty common and you may have come across it. We’re talking here about praising someone, giving compliments. Now if you praise them to the skies, think of compliments piled so high that they reach the sky. Wow. That’s a lot of praise. And that’s what praising to the skies means: Wow, you’re wonderful! Magnificent! Stupendous! I’ve never seen anyone like you! Your work is colossal! It’s a masterpiece. You’re a genius. You make Mozart look dull. Einstein takes a backseat to you.

And you could continue ad nauseam (that’s Latin for: until you puke; ok, that’s my tweaked definition, but really…).

In the process, you would be giving someone a major ego trip.

Compliment vs. Complement

Did you notice the use of the word “compliment” in the explanation for “praising to the skies”?

“Compliment” is when you say something nice to someone, when you flatter them.

Here are some examples of compliments:

My, what a nice hairdo!

What a nice smile!

What lovely teeth you have, Grandma! (Little Red Riding Hood’s ill-fated words)

“Complement” on the other hand, is about things that go well together, or add onto one another for a good, even a perfect, effect.

Some examples:

Your eye colour complements your sweater today (or vice-versa).

The orchestra complemented the restaurant atmosphere.

I think you will find that the soup complements the dinner wonderfully.

You will often find “complement” in situations to do with dress and food, although it can apply to many other situations as well.

Now, given that “compliment” and “complement” sound quite the same, how do we distinguish between them and use them in their right instead of wrong context?

We could go for some memory tricks:

Use the letter “i”

I would like to compliment you on your dress.

I compliment everyone.

Use the letter “e”

The dress complements your shoes perfectly.

And once you’ve got the differences nicely sorted out, you can start playing around with them like so:

Your compliment on my speech was a complement to the whole gala dinner.

Say what?

As a husband and wife you complement each other to a T; one reason is probably that neither of you is given to overdoing compliments.

Have a good week y’all, and pepper your statements with compliments, not complements. Remember to complement your outfits, your dinners, and your sentences. Then praise your friends to the skies. And after you’ve done all that, you’ll probably be so tired that you’ll want to ride someone’s coattails. It’s ok, you deserve it.

Enough advice for one week!

Enjoying PerfectlyWriteKids.com and the weekly rants? Know someone else who could boost their grammar, vocabulary, or entertainment level? You know where to send them…