American Idioms, a Column in The Students Post

There's a lot of good stuff in old newspapers. Other than what I posted in the previous entries. Here's another informative column in The Student Post, "American Idioms." The following was dated September 25, 1994.

American Idioms

By Joseph Liebermon

Stop cold

Both human bodies and all kinds of combustion engines become hot when they are active and cooler when they are passive, at rest, or have died. The burning of fuel (food energy for humans) ensures that this is so, a simple fact of life.

For either the engine or the human, therefore, to suddenly stop cold implies that this cessation has been extreme, radical, total and without forewarning. This idiom can be used with any situation (not limited to bodies or engines) in which the change from active to non-active has come about like a sudden shock, usually with undesirable results.

...

Stop cold--stop completely and suddenly

1. The project was stopped cold when the government cut off all further funding.

2. He was working very well but then just stopped cold, unable to write another word.