Joined at the hip?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Joined at the hip?

The figurative use of the phrase is American and dates from as recently as the 1960s….

Alright. Oh, hold on a second. Figurative use of the phrase?

That means when the phrase is used to describe something metaphorically, i.e. not literally.

When “joined at the hip” are used to describe Siamese twins, for example, it is used literally (although not always accurately). When the phrase is used to describe the close relationship of two normal individuals, the meaning becomes figurative. For example, Peter and Paul are very thick. They go to school together. They play together. They do everything together. They’re joined at the hip.

When the phrase is used to describe two different things, such as is the case in our example (stocks and jobs), the meaning is, again, figurative. I remember watching years ago an HBO documentary on the life of Bobby Fischer and hearing this expression. In it, someone describes the former world chess champion – arguably the greatest player to ever set the pieces, so to speak – as saying to the effect that his genius and his mental illness, namely paranoia, are “joined at the hip”.

Meaning?

Namely you cannot deal with one without the other. In other words, his genius and paranoia (he thinks he’s watched by the CIA, which, if you understand what Edward Snowden is saying these days, might well have been true) – among other insufferable personality traits – are inseparable. It is, like, a situation of Jekyll and Hyde. Now he is Jekyll, happy, nice and sportsmanlike. Now he is Hyde, insecure, irritable, unruly, disrespectful and downright detestable.