hell and half of Georgia
- idiom
- Informal
:
una eternidad
- She went through hell and half of Georgia just to get here on time.
Examples
-
It seemed to take hell and half of Georgia before we finally got the paperwork approved.
-
I spent hell and half of Georgia finding the right parts for the old car.
-
I've been waiting for hell and half of Georgia for your call!
-
He worked on that project for hell and half of Georgia.
-
I spent hell and half of Georgia finding the right parts for the old car.
-
It seemed to take hell and half of Georgia before we finally got the paperwork approved.
-
She went through hell and half of Georgia just to get here on time.
Antonyms
How Long
∞
1.0
- Informal
∞
1.0
∞
1.0
414
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
hell + and + half + of + Georgia
The phrase is an idiomatic regional hyperbole whose sense ('a very long time' or 'with great effort') does not follow from the literal meanings of 'hell', 'and', 'half', 'of', and 'Georgia'. A B1 learner who knows the individual words would not predict this extended, culture-specific meaning because the constituents do not compositionally combine to convey duration or effort. Therefore the expression is unpredictable and language-specific, making it opaque to learners.
Etymology
Hell and half of Georgia may come from people imagining a trip so bad you go through hell and still have to cross half of Georgia. One popular story says that strong picture was used to show a very long, hard time, so today the phrase means 'to take a very long time or to cause a lot of trouble'.