Idioms

I love idioms. The first time I hear them, I do hear them literally. 'To bend over backwards' does conjuger an immediate image of a person contorting themselves. But then the challenge is to work out what it means. Generally metaphore is involved. I puzzle it out. If I can't, well I ask. Once learned, I understand and redeploy with glee. It's no different to learning a new single item of vocab.

Yeah, we do take stuff literally. But this causes me most problems when people say stuff they only meant loosely.  That can cause some anxiety. For example a person promises to call "in the afternoon" but then actually calls at 11 am (morning) or at 6 pm ( ahem, evening).

Often times stuff said as a joke by passes me because I took it literally, or I recognised that it wasn't meant literally but couldn't figure out what was meant. Bless him, my old boss fell foul of that often and we had a giggle later when we realised we were speaking two different languages: one literal, one playful and I got totally the wrong end of the stick (Hello, another idiom). He knows I'm autistic and will admonish himself with a laugh:"Oh God, should know better that to do that with you". Lol

But, I am a linguist too and adore the way other cultures conceptualize ideas differently and love learning their idioms like other vocab items. For instance, when something happens rarely in English we say:"once in a blue moon". There is such a thing as a blue moon, but it's rare. In French you'd say: "tous les trente-six du mois" (every thirty sixth of the month), which of course never occurs. What a lovely idea! Or when it's raining hard we say: "it's raining cats and dogs", apparently because rain would make cats and dogs prowling the rafters of your thatch fall down. In French: "il pleure comme vaches qui pissent" (it's raining like pissing cows). How funny! There is an image in my head of flying cows emptying their bladders. Got to love it. Lol

I especially love idioms which have a grain of truth behind them. Also for rare happenings in English: "as rare as hen's teeth", but apparently as birds are descendants of dinosaurs, they do have the genes to produce teeth and a very rare individual chicken does. Oh boy!

I love idioms. The first time I hear them, I do hear them literally. 'To bend over backwards' does conjuger an immediate image of a person contorting themselves. But then the challenge is to work out what it means. Generally metaphore is involved. I puzzle it out. If I can't, well I ask. Once learned, I understand and redeploy with glee. It's no different to learning a new single item of vocab.

Yeah, we do take stuff literally. But this causes me most problems when people say stuff they only meant loosely.  That can cause some anxiety. For example a person promises to call "in the afternoon" but then actually calls at 11 am (morning) or at 6 pm ( ahem, evening).

Often times stuff said as a joke by passes me because I took it literally, or I recognised that it wasn't meant literally but couldn't figure out what was meant. Bless him, my old boss fell foul of that often and we had a giggle later when we realised we were speaking two different languages: one literal, one playful and I got totally the wrong end of the stick (Hello, another idiom). He knows I'm autistic and will admonish himself with a laugh:"Oh God, should know better that to do that with you". Lol

But, I am a linguist too and adore the way other cultures conceptualize ideas differently and love learning their idioms like other vocab items. For instance, when something happens rarely in English we say:"once in a blue moon". There is such a thing as a blue moon, but it's rare. In French you'd say: "tous les trente-six du mois" (every thirty sixth of the month), which of course never occurs. What a lovely idea! Or when it's raining hard we say: "it's raining cats and dogs", apparently because rain would make cats and dogs prowling the rafters of your thatch fall down. In French: "il pleure comme vaches qui pissent" (it's raining like pissing cows). How funny! There is an image in my head of flying cows emptying their bladders. Got to love it. Lol

I especially love idioms which have a grain of truth behind them. Also for rare happenings in English: "as rare as hen's teeth", but apparently as birds are descendants of dinosaurs, they do have the genes to produce teeth and a very rare individual chicken does. Oh boy!