bushy-eyed

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hi,

  1. “And while they are a big club, in this instance they assumed the role of the smaller team in terms of being all bushy-eyed at the experience of playing a club like Arsenal.”

The only definition of ‘bushy-eyed’ I’ve found came from the Urban Dictionary: When your little sister looks at you with a weird wild look in her eyes!! So why are you looking so bushy eyed?
Sounds close to ‘abasing themselves before someone’. Ever met it?

  1. Having read “Clifford Stott, a professor of social psychology at Keele University, is an expert on crowd behaviour” I wondered what pushes you towards ‘on’ or ‘in’ in each particular case. Eg an expert [size=200][color=darkblue]in [/size]health care\ political history\ soil management\anatomy\geology\climatology\genealogy\ parliamentary rules.
    But: an expert [size=150][color=red]on [/size]geography\precious stones\mythology\computers\wines\oriental philosophy\ ancient pottery.

Any simple explanation?

2

  1. It is a play on the idiom “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed”; here, excited or enthusiastic. idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bri … shy-tailed

  2. To me you are an expert in a field or job, but an expert on a particular topic. I agree sometimes the border is a little fuzzy. In your examples I would say “expert on parliamentary rules”. Google “expert on parliamentary rules” and “expert in parliamentary rules”.
    It is interesting that all the Google hits for “expert in parliamentary rules” have to do with a parliamentarian, which is a job. And several, like geography, and anatomy could go either way.

3

Thank you, Luschen.

  1. Well, I’m aware of the ‘bright-eyed and bushy-tailed’ idiom, he’s just twisted it (for a humorous purpose I suppose). So they were enthusiastic about having to face off such a massive club as Arsenal.

  2. ‘In’ = you’re inside the sphere\in-volved.
    ‘On’ = you’re on\outside it; just looking on, not involved.
    Would you take it?

4

Yes, I think that is a good way to think of it. Still, often if you are an expert on something you are also involved in it.