TODAY'S LESSON: IDIOMS

When I began this blog a year or so ago, I had high hopes of continuing my role as a teacher, a purveyor of knowledge to those who might be interested in reading my musings.  As I had immersed myself into family genealogy, my thoughts on paper seemed to focus on family members. . .that and my desire to preserve family stories for the younger generations in my family.  Nevertheless, while I am still addicted to genealogy, my memory has returned me to my original intent, which is to provide readers with interesting, extraneous information that will probably be useless in every sense except for the sheer fact of knowing it.  [NOTE: There will NOT be a test on this material!]

Recently, in an email to a friend, I was recalling a watershed event many years ago in my life and career, and in doing so,  I described a decision I made based on the event as being an inevitable one in which  my fate was sealed, my goose was cooked, my bed was made.  As I re-read my email, I laughed at myself, thinking how many more idioms and phrases I could come up with which would mean the same thing.  All of this to say that I have been inspired to write a post on this blog about some of the idioms we use in our language and how we got to some of them.

Years ago, I worked with a young American French teacher.  She was born in this country and educated in the schools of the USA.  However, she had a different way of speaking English.  I finally realized that she used NO English idioms.  I listened to her in casual conversation situations, and there was not one ever in anything I ever heard her say in English.  I cannot comment with any credibility on her French, as I do not speak the language.  But her English was as pure as the driven snow.

At this point, perhaps, I should give defining an idiom the old school try.   The Oxford Companion to the English Language defines an idiom "as an  expression, word, or phrase that has a figuative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made."  In other words, most of us know what to kick the bucket means. . .someone dies. This is the figurative meaning.  It does not mean literally that a person walks over and kicks a bucket and dies. (I'm sure there are some instances in life -- or death -- when that has happened, but that is for another lesson!)

For those of you who might remember comic strips in the Sunday newspapers, I call to your attention one entitled THE FAMILY CIRCUS.  Its story line always put a, seemingly, normal family of father, mother, and three kids, and a dog into average, family situations.  If you remember, the youngest child, a toddler, was non-verbal and his reactions to what was being said by his parents or siblings showed up "above his head" in word pictures while he had a puzzled look on his face.  Sometimes, the dog even had the same word picture understanding of an expression that the toddler had.  It was a great example of a novice of language hearing figurative expressions and picturing them literally. 

Although not an example of an idiom, but of misinterpretation of figurative and literal language, the above reminds me of my three-year-old great niece getting all excited about riding on the Mississippi River Canal Street Ferry when she and her mother were in New Orleans the other week. All my niece said was, "Would you like to ride the Ferry across the Mississippi River and back again?"  The little one was sooo excited; she almost couldn't contain herself.  However, she showed her displeasure when they walked onto the ferry boat.  Through her sobs, she told her mother that she thought they were going to ride over on the wings of a Fairy to the Westbank and back again.  Now, we all say Ferry Boat! But even that can confuse a three year old.

There are an estimated 25,000 idiomatic expressions in British, Australian, and American English.  I'm not sure who does the counting of items such as this, but even I'm impressed with numbers like that.  Which brings me back to my French teacher colleague.  With that many idioms in English, how was it possible to not use any idioms? That is almost impossible for an English speaking person.  However, years later I think I learned why my colleague did not use idioms or idiomatic expressions and didn't seem to understand the ones I used.  It seems she was an only child of naturalized American citizens from Italy.  Both parents spoke Italian at home.  My friend was educated in America in Catholic schools, taught by nuns.  She learned Italian at home; non-idiomatic English at a strict Catholic school; and French in text books and in classrooms in high school and college. 

I read an interesting bit of extraneous information the other day.  I had used the expression rack and ruin to describe my financial situation if I had to pay all of a certain bill at one time.  I decided to look up the origin of the expression.  According to Gary Martin in the website The Phrase Finder, rack is  a variant of the now defunct word wrack, more usually known to us now as wreck. The use of the two similar words 'rack' and 'ruin' is for the sake of emphasis. In that respect, the phrase follows the pattern beck and call, tit for tat, fair and square, etc.

The first record of use of the expression in English seems to have been in 1548 in a sermon by Ephraim Udall in which he stated "The flocke goeth to wrecke and vtterly perisheth."  In 1577, Henry Bull moved the phrase to wrack and ruin in his translation of Martin Luther's Commentarie upon the fiftene psalmes. 

The phrase finally became rack and ruin in 1599 when Oxford historian Thomas Fowler published  The History of Corpus Christi College.  Fowler wrote, "In the mean season the College shall goe to rack and ruin."  This was Fowler's prediction of the, then, 82 year old school. It was established in 1517, is the twelfth oldest of Oxford University's colleges, and is very famous for its historical significance of providing the translation of The King James Bible. Perhaps, Fowler should not have worried about the school's buildings decaying and becoming destroyed, because now after 411 years after his rack and ruin prediction, the college is still standing and being used as a busy Oxford college.  Please note the picture  of Corpus Christi College as it stands today.

For most of us, to speak a sentence, a paragraph, or a longer tome, we would be hard put to do so without idioms.  They are a part of our conversations and our lives.  However, sometimes our references are unknown to others and we must remember that even others who speak our own language might not know our own, particular idioms.  New Orleans, for example, seems to have a language of its own.  Try explaining neutral ground, makin' groceries, how's yo mama and dem, suckin' heads, etc. to English speaking people from other parts of our own country. It took our Saints winning the Superbowl for America and the rest of the world to understand that great, burning question on the lips of most New Orleanians. . .Who Dat?

 

Speaking without using idioms is like trying to eat a meal without condiments.  How boring  plain food can be.  How bland non-idiomatic language can be.  Whether we are between a rock and a hard place or up to our rear end in alligators; whether your advice and a dollar and a quarter will get someone on the street car or Confession is good for the soul; and whether or not we make a decision that brings us to the brink of rack and ruin, and we accept the inevitability of our decision as to our goose being cooked, our fate being sealed, our bed being made, the die being cast, the decision being written in stone. . .  You get the picture;  you fill in the rest!