A look at our colorful language
I love the English language.
I even use some of it from time to time.
This is one of those times.
What does this mean? “You’re beating a dead horse.”
I’ve spent years researching old newspapers, but I’ve never found a single case of somebody who’s beaten a dead horse.
That phrase doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?
It’s just one of the thousands of idiomatic phrases that make the English language so colorful.
“I hate to burst your bubble,” portends the violent removal of some innocent person’s bubble.
If you’re contemplating that sort of thing, stop!
Why is it, when somebody uses the three-word phrase, “Knock on wood,” they immediately look for something made of wood to tap on it?
Who came up with that particular custom?
And, is that an actual custom?
Why do the phrases, “The bare facts,” and the “Naked truth,” have some relationship to clothing – or the lack of it?
This may surprise you but, you can remain seated, while you “stand up and be counted.” Did you know that?
All of this is about how idiom-rich the English language is.
When I lived in Los Angeles, back in the mid-1990s, I tutored some foreign visitors in English. What they were fascinated by the most were our idioms.
The stuff we say that can’t be taken literally.
It wasn’t easy trying to make sense of a phrase like, “Records are made to be broken.”
“Let’s bury the hatchet,” really doesn’t mean two people will dig a hole and put a hatchet in it.
“The early bird” that “catches a worm,” has nothing to do with birds or worms.
Somebody who’s a “loose cannon” isn’t as violent as it might seem.
All of this makes English interesting – but maddening to people from around the world.
For some reason, animals are employed for many, many English idioms.
Somebody who doesn’t quite fit into their current situation can be deemed a “fish out of water.”
But if that person finally does discover a group of people in which they feel comfortable, it could be said that “birds of a feather – flock together.”
Bats, for some reason, get two, distinct, idioms.
If somebody is fleet of foot, you can claim they “run like a bat out of hell.” Or, if somebody isn’t of sound mind, they could be considered to have “bats in their belfry.”
(I have no idea what a belfry is. The only time I’ve ever heard that word is in relationship to bats being in them.)
I have a question: Are foxes sly or crazy?
A person just might be considered sly like a fox, or crazy like a fox. I haven’t checked, but most likely I’d say they can’t be both.
How do we truly tell if somebody is as “drunk as a skunk?”
Or that they’re as “high as a kite?”
If something doesn’t amount to a “hill of beans,” that’s probably better than somebody who “makes a mountain out of a molehill,” I suppose.
If you encounter a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” you just may become a “lamb taken to the slaughter.”
It’s oh, so dangerous being a sheep.
Our language is so full of stuff that isn’t what it sounds like, that I once culled a list of 475 phrases that seem to fit that category.
Calling somebody “yellow” is a heavy insult.
If somebody sees “red,” they really aren’t.
“White” lies are still lies. They’re just, for some inexplicable reason, “white.”
Is a “bold-face” lie worse than a “white” lie?
What do you do when you “give somebody an inch” and they “take a mile?”
If I ask you to “watch my back,” what I really mean is I want you to “keep an eye out for me,” or something.
Which you really shouldn’t try.
All this is to say that the English language is really a lot of fun. I’ve used it for about 72 of my 73 years.
That’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 40-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.