(idd-ee-ums—you’re welcome)
You know, the first time I heard the word “idiom,” it went in one ear and out the other.
Did you catch that? I just worked an idiom into the conversation. Pretty smooth. Go me.
If you don’t really know what an idiom is, it’s a phrase or expression that often sounds like nonsense but has a meaning—hidden, maybe—that the writer or speaker is trying to get across in an interesting way.
For example, the word didn’t actually go in and out of my ears. Silly, right? Painful, too. Well, I was just trying to creatively say that it seemed like the word didn’t get into my brain somehow. Why didn’t I just say that? Because I’m creative, that’s why. We creatives do things like that. And you might think that I don’t know fancy words because I live in a time and place that is not very fancy—or sometimes even minimally civilized—but I know a few things. Plus, I’m creative.
Anyway, here are a few of my favorite examples:
- Raining cats and dogs
- Spill the beans
- Under the weather
- Caught red-handed
- Fit as a fiddle (or Fhfyrd’s lyre)
- One-trick pony
Fun phrases, huh? There are many, many others. More than you can shake a stick at.
Well, anyway again, it’s time for me to shake a leg and then call it a day before I change my mind or have a change of heart (yuck).
I was going to say something else about that…now what was it? It’s on the tip of my tongue. Ha!
Now I remember—make up a few of your own idioms and share them with your friends. Go ahead and do it today. There’s no time like the present.
