You're such an idiom.

I'm letting the cat out the bag on idioms. Seeing what makes them tick, stripping them down to the bare bones and having a poke around. Ok, that's enough of that. We all know what idioms are, those annoying little phrases that crop up in nearly every conversation and everything you've ever read, ever. But how much do you really know?

 

Idioms are defined as 'a form of expression natural to a language, person or group' or 'A group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words'. (1)

 

By that, it is meant that idioms have a 'non-productive syntax'. They are a semantic unit rather than a phrase or clause, as the sum of the words is not where the meaning is held, it is within the idiom itself (2). For example, if we take the idiom 'kicking the bucket' and look at the meaning of the words and the sum of the sentence, we are left with the picture of someone kicking a bucket. But as English speakers I'm am pretty sure we are all aware that this idiom is describing someone's death. What on Earth have buckets got to do with death?

 

The answer to that is nothing. Or at least, nothing any more, perhaps they did long, long ago, but the fossilisation of idioms and often their lexis ('for whom the bells tolls') have left them no more than hollow little word clusters, doomed to a life without meaning.

 

Before we start to feel too sorry for our friends the idioms, some of them, despite their fossilisation, have managed to retain some of their original meaning. Although they are still used as carelessly as normal idioms and mainly hold their meaning within their overuse, the sum of the words within these 'transparent idioms' (3) is equal to the meaning of the idiom. Let's take a look at another idiom about death (there are countless) this time 'pushing up daisy's'. Unlike 'kicking the bucket', 'pushing up daisy's' actually relates to death, because for someone to be pushing up daisy's, they would have to underground, presumably dead (or possibly buried alive, but that's a whole new kettle of fish). So these kinds of idioms are 'transparent' because we can see through the semantic cluster to their meaning, which unlike normal idioms, actually relates to the subject of conversation. We can see the wood through the trees, if you will. These transparent idioms can also be used as a gateway into the world of idioms for non-native speakers, as with a little work their meaning can be deduced.

 

Idioms can have a profound influence on a language, sometime even worm their way into the lexis itself. Take the Brazilian phrase "saber de curacao" meaning 'to know by heart' with the same idiomatic meaning as in English, this became shorted to "saber de cor", which eventually assimilated into "decorar", the current Brazilian word for 'memorize'.

 

So although idioms drive us all mad, they are not as bland and boring as you may think (unless you use them in your writing, only terrible people do that). And as some may say, they really do prop up our language.

(3) – based on Gibbs research 'Linguistic Factors in Children's Understanding of Idioms'

(1) Google define

By Lois Shearing