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Achilles heel

Reader question:

What does “English is his Achilles heel” mean exactly?

My comments:

It means that English is his weak point – and probably a fatal weak point.

He, whoever he is, has applied for a job, say, at a multinational firm in Beijing. He’s found to be more than qualified in all areas except English language. And he fails to get the job because of this single inadequacy.

This will be an apt situation for saying English is his Achilles heel – It’s what fails him.

Achilles heel refers to Achilles’ heel. Achilles, of course, is the hero in Greek mythology which is full of lovely, I mean personable, gods who all seem to have the same human emotions as you and I. Anyways, Achilles’ mother, in an attempt to make his son immortal, set out to wash Achilles in a magic river. In doing so, she held Achilles by the ankle and therefore immersed every part of the baby’s body except the heel she held in her hand. She forgot to change hands – to hold the boy’s other ankle and wash the boy’s other foot. The long and short of it is Achilles’ body became impenetrable by weaponry except for one spot – at the unwashed heel.

And sure enough Achilles eventually died of a wound after being hit by an arrow on that very heel.

Anyways, use this cliché with care and apply it only in situations when one’s weak point proves fatal. It’s not ok, for instance, to say English is your Achilles heel when you simply mean to say you’re not particularly good at it.