Idioms are a piece of cake!

Well, not literally, but it might be nice if they were. Then, we could change varieties and flavors to match the ideas we want to express.

An idiom is a group of words with a different figurative meaning than its literal meaning. It is established by use as having a meaning NOT understood or conveyed from the individual words making it up.

They are another language gift way of saying old things in new ways to give freshness to writing and conversation. I feel sorry for non-English speakers trying to learn our language. Years ago a bright, lovely young woman from Japan helped us can and dry vegetables in our farm situation in Northwestern Canada. Near the end of a long day we had processed everything needed and noticed our water tank was empty.

“We’re running out of water,” I called to the team, meaning we could basically close up shop. Our Japanese guest stood still, stared at the floor with concern, and literally hiked up her pant legs to stay dry. “We are running out of water?” she repeated, and we got to explain that she was not in immediate danger of getting soaked.

Who created idioms and why? What was the first one spoken and when? It would be nice to know and more fun to picture their originating scenarios. We do know the word’s origin are found in Greek idiomatos, Latin idioma, and French, idiome, so those peoples used and enjoyed them.

Other current popular examples used today are, I’m a monkey’s uncle, in a nutshell, get your ducks in a row, raining cats and dogs, let the cat out of the bag, kill two birds with one stone, spill the beans, sit on the fence, talk out of both sides of your mouth, beat around the bush, bite the bullet, pull someone’s leg, get bent out of shape, bite off more than you can chew—enough to scare all non-English speakers.

Don’t wear yourself out but it would be the bees knees if you’d get your feet wet by wrapping your head around this language feature to come up with your own out of the box examples. But don’t try so hard we have to hang you out to dry before you spit feathers or dry up and blow away.

Please share your favorites—and have a great week!