One trick to catch a thief is to intentionally leave something of value out in an effort to entice a thief to steal. For example, you might leave a sparkly set of cuff links out on your desk at work to see if anyone has stick fingers.  Two-part question:   Is there a word which identifies the item left out to entice the thief? "Bait" comes to mind, but I hope for a word more specific to this situation. Is there a word/phrase/idiom which identifies this technique? The action of leaving something out to entice a thief to steal.
121989
I'm having trouble understanding the rationale behind the meaning of an American English phrase of which I just became aware.  That phrase is:     You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar   From what I understand now, this phrase would indicate that You make more friends by being nice than by being rude.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.  My confusion comes from the fact that no one catches flies in order to do anything nice to them (Well, I suppose some people do. But it's not common!).  When I first read it, I actually thought the phrase meant You'll have more success luring people into a trap by being nice than by being rude. This didn't make much sense in context, though, which led me to ask around about the phrase.  Where does this phrase come from? More importantly, why does it have such a counter-intuitive meaning?
122991
I am not a native English speaker, I usually hear “something caught my eye” but never “something caught (both) my eyes”. This seems pretty strange to me.  Cambridge Dictionaries Online provide these examples but without any explanation        (i) to get someone's ​attention:   A ​sudden ​movement ​caught my ​eye.        (ii) to get someone's ​attention, ​especially by ​looking at them:   I ​tried to catch the waiter's ​eye, so we could ​order.        (iii) to be ​attractive or different enough to be ​noticed by someone:   It was the ​unusual ​colour of his ​jacket that ​caught my ​eye.   Why is only one eye ‘caught”? Doesn't something catch our sight? We normally see with both eyes, not with one.
115714
When a player tries to steal the ball from a dribbling player, the referees sometimes award a "reaching foul". I just can't see any difference between a steal and a foul
79445
I found an interesting article that I wanted to email to my boss, but they may or may not already be of aware of such information. It got me thinking if there are any idioms that mean discovering something that is old news or is already known by many?  Anyone know? Thanks!
120390
Is there a word for the selfish kind of (possibly humourous) delight felt at someone else's failure?  e.g.     No matter how I tried, I couldn't complete the seemingly simple task. So feeling like an idiot I gave up and asked the expert. But to my ______, he couldn't do it either!   Edit  I don't feel like schadenfreude really fits - it seems to be more about a sadistic sort of pleasure in someone else's bad fortune. Whereas I'm looking for a sort of combination of humour, a touch of triumph and maybe even relief - and a little bit of, as Walt said, "it's not just that I'm an idiot" (if applicable).
28713
I'm looking for an idiom to describe something that has a negligible effect.   The only similar question I found here was: , but I'm looking for something else.  I remember it being something to do with water or fire. Something along the lines of throwing a very small amount of water on a large fire? Does anyone know what I'm thinking of?
91120
When I am writing, and I want to leave something out, so that it gives an implied effect, I use this: ...  What is it called?
77161
I'm trying to get my kids to be honest and take responsibility.   I'm seeing a repeated pattern where one or both of my kids will lie to get out of trouble. They're starting to see that they can deny responsiblity.   Our current system of reward involves a marble jar, where the family will go out for a collective treat. When this stuff happens we take marbles out of the jar as a joint penalty.   This seems to be decreasing in effectiveness.   My question is: What do I do when I walk into a room with a broken item and both children shrug their shoulders and say "Wasn't me"?  Clarification: Kids are girl: 5 and boy: 4. Cultural context is Australian middle class with two university educated parents.
88181
After catching the first pokemon you are left to catch pokemon as you wish with no further explanation on how best to catch these pokemon.  After throwing around 10 balls and having them hit away/dodged and just rolling pathetically on the ground, I realised there must be a technique I missed.  How should you approach a wild pokemon encounter so as to maximise catching probability?
92696
I understand how Insight and Perception can be used passively: for the DM to determine if an enemy Deception or Stealth attempt is successful without alerting the players that someone is deceiving or sneaking.    But the Observant feat in the Player's Handbook states:      [...] You have a +5 bonus to your passive Wisdom (Perception) and passive Intelligence (Investigation) scores.     So in what situation would a DM be rolling something against the player's Investigation without letting them know?
77883
Could anyone give me an explanation of the meaning of "get one's finger in the air" and the usage of it?
104820
If I go to pickpocket a person who's recently caught me, I get an error saying I can't do it because they've already caught me.  How long does this last?  Is it indefinite, or will they "forget" after a certain amount of time?
53675
i have this situation. A set of 5000 objects, 4950 blue and 50 green. From this set two people (person A and person B) fish separately 100 objects each and i would like to know if one of the two people has tricked me (not fishing blinded).   person A fished one set of 100 objects, 90 blue and 10 green. person B fished one set of 100 objects, 99 blue and 1 green (that would be expected by chance)   Which test should i use? Could someone point me to a R example/solution about it? Thanks in advance
113599
It's someone who tends to be a nice person but hides something or there is something off about him. Sometimes, you meet this kind of people and you know that his/her kindness hides a darker side. I thought about sly or shady but they seem a bit too much, however I might be wrong. Is deceitful the correct term or is there a more specific one?  Example : &quot;I don't like the new boss, his kindness hides something&quot; &quot; I don't like the new boss, he is _____&quot;
48004
Do you know any idioms meaning "you know how to convince me"?  Edit: the context is a humorous response to someone offers you something you can't resist
97299
It is possible to use the stealth skill to "hide" in . But are there any mechanical benefits to doing so?  In combat, you gain advantage on an attack if your target can't see you, and confer disadvantage on their attack. Since you must be unseen to hide in the first place, what extra benefit does hiding get you?  Out of combat benefits might be harder to enumerate, but are there good examples where hiding might provide something more than just a good stealth check would?
89851
A massive cliché in action movies (especially James Bond), but is there actually a word for that moment when the evil villain reveals their deadly plot to the action hero before (usually attempting and failing at) killing them? If there is no word for this, is there a phrase for the &quot;reason that this was done&quot; i.e. if you asked the villain why they did it (apart from probably for personal satisfaction). In a similar (but un-deadly scenario), is there a word/phrase/motive for the reason someone might feel like they wanted to tell someone (they wouldn't see again) why they had acted in a certain way prior to the final parting (i.e. telling them about past events during their final encounter)? e.g. &quot;I acted like that because I really liked you and what you did made me feel bad at the time, and I felt like I needed to tell you because...&quot; (is this even a good idea haha)