Idioms

[AG31]

I often entertain myself by trying to put words to what I think about the novel I'm currently reading. Today I was enjoying a first time mystery set in academia. I was enjoying the cracks the MC made in her mind about the idiocies of academic life, about which I know something. I was reflecting on whether I'd put the author in my list of "get their next book," and decided that her quick wit about academia would begin to wear thin. Then I got to thinking about "wear thin." I wondered how it got started. Was it one clever person in some article in a suburban London paper in the 1850's? Or is it so obvious that it cropped up everywhere?

Then I got to thinking about how authors treat idioms. What are your thoughts?

Do you just use them naturally and not give them another thought?

Are you grateful that they exist, and think of them as just part of the lexicon?

Are they red flags, to try better? If "wearing thin" pops up in your mind, do you work it over to "evoking the same response over and over until it becomes an irritation?"

Are there some that you especially like, or some that you especially hate, from over use, perhaps?

For my part, I have thought about this or that idiom on occasion, but I can't recall any specifics. I'll reply to this thread if I come up with some answers.

 

[ADirtyPerv]

I think idioms are a really cool artifact of being fluent in a language. You won't get the idioms until you're sufficiently fluent, and I find multilingual people fascinating for that reason. Do you always understand all the idioms if you lean more towards this language in your repertoire, versus another one? If you know English and Spanish, for example, does one language have more idioms that go over your head?

I like "down in the dumps" lately. Phonetically, it really matches what it's conveying. You can say it like Eeyore, with dramatically slumped shoulders.

 

[StillStunned]

I don't give them much thought in most stories. But in my sword & sorcery series "The Rivals", one of the characters is a scholar. I like to give him unusual idioms to toss around, which I often take from literal translations from other languages.

Sometimes I'll have him say something like "Make haste slowly, as they say in - well, never mind." Or "There are more days than weeks, according to the people of - but you don't want to hear that."

Other times I'll have him attribute it to a poet. In the latest story, when his companion Avilia wakes up with a hangover, he says, "We fall asleep to the roar of the lion, as the poet said, and wake to the croaking of frogs." Sometimes I'll give the poet a name, and sometimes it's just "the poet".

Both of these are great fun for me to come up with.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Are there some that you especially like, or some that you especially hate, from over use, perhaps?

For my part, I have thought about this or that idiom on occasion, but I can't recall any specifics. I'll reply to this thread if I come up with some answers.

I can't pick anything out in particular, but I suspect the fact that I'm an Australian writer shows in my use of language, the different culture. American readers, more so than English or Canadian readers, might sense that I'm not a yank.

There's an Oz idiom - like poms, you don't even get the courtesy of an upper case first letter.

 

[Writer61]

I don't mind them, except for trying to make them period-appropriate.

 

[AG31]

I like "down in the dumps" lately. Phonetically, it really matches what it's conveying. You can say it like Eeyore, with dramatically slumped shoulders.

Wonderful!

 

[HyunnaPark]

I spend a lot of time thinking about idioms when I'm writing because I write a lot of multilingual characters, and frequently have characters who are native speakers of each other's secondary language trying to communicate. Idioms are great because they showcase the language, they give each character a different voice, they can show progress for a character (I recently shelved a story where a Korean-born character in New York learns the phrase "Igottaguy" like "I got a guy", and she uses the phrase later in the story as a way to show that she's begun the process of accepting and acclimating to her new home).

Also some idioms are so powerful they're worth building the entire story around. I've got a story in progress that's based around an idiom in Korean that has a very simple translation in English but carries a lot of emotional punch when used in Korean.

 

[alohadave]

think of them as just part of the lexicon?

This

 

[MrPixel]

I like messing with idioms. Like "A stitch in time saves... a bunch of sewing." I really don't keep track of how much I use fractured idioms in stories, but it's frequent.

I do refer to Murphy's Law a lot. It's probably because the guy who popularized it, AF Col. John Stapp, lived down the street from my family at the time, and his son and I were frequent playmates.

You can say it like Eeyore, with dramatically slumped shoulders.

"Oh, bother." I frequently use the characterization of that particular mood in response to petty disappointments, like a restaurant server informing us they're out of a certain item. It garners smiles and snickers with a doleful, "I guess...".

 

[AG31]

fractured idioms

Did you come up with that? Or is it just a thing I haven't bumped into before?

 

[MrPixel]

Mine, I guess. My mind plays with words constantly. Drives my wife crazy.

 

[BeechLeaf]

I recently refrained from using 'it goes in and out like anything' in a, er, well, it wasn't what Eeyore was thinking when he said it.

 

[Lector77]

For those who love idioms, refranes, etc.

https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/refranero/

The beauty of some very old Spanish idioms is that they are so well known that just the first couple of words are understood as the entire expression.

Example: Cría cuervos…

The listener understands this as Cría cuervos, y te sacarán los ojos.


Literally- Raise crows, and they will peck out your eyes.

 

[Britva415]

For those who love idioms, refranes, etc.

https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/refranero/

The beauty of some very old Spanish idioms is that they are so well known that just the first couple of words are understood as the entire expression.

Example: Cría cuervos…

The listener understands this as Cría cuervos, y te sacarán los ojos.


Literally- Raise crows, and they will peck out your eyes.

The various Chinese languages are full of these too. There are a whole galaxy of "three character phrases" and (more usually) "four character phrases" which allude to and derive from sources ranging from the very very old to the early modern, from poetry to history to song to novelry.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Outside of my fantasy stories, I don't really think of them, I just use them where appropriate.

But, in the fantasy story, I might get held up by trying to find an alternate way of saying, "It takes two to tango" that won't confuse my readers.

 

[ronde]

Idioms are the language of real people. All languages have them, and even regional dialects have distinct idioms. There a good way to say a lot with very few words. A few might confuse a reader not from that region, but in English anyway, most are commonly understood. The South is particularly rich in idioms.

How about, "hot as fish grease" when used to describe a character, or "a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs"

 

[MrPixel]

"It takes two to tango"

Which I corrupt into "It takes two to tangle." Both are useful in erotica.

 

[Lector77]

How about, "hot as fish grease" when used to describe a character, or "a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs"

From an Alaska native who had lived in Minnesota for decades:

Slick as deer guts on a doorknob.

(Referring to someone with shady business practices.)

 

[StillStunned]

Outside of my fantasy stories, I don't really think of them, I just use them where appropriate.

But, in the fantasy story, I might get held up by trying to find an alternate way of saying, "It takes two to tango" that won't confuse my readers.

In Goldflower, I came up with this variation:

"A second-rate demon charmer." The words rasped out in a whisper. An affectation, Sligh decided, intended to make people listen more closely.

Well, none is lonelier than the dancer without a partner, as the poet said. "Sorry, what was that? You might need to speak up."