Chrysti The Wordsmith: Generic Idioms

Good day verb of yours and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. Mad as a hatter. A chip off the old block. Knock your socks off. These are three examples of expressions known as idioms. We English speakers love our idioms and of coin thousands of them over the centuries and idiom is not just any old generic cliche idioms are mavericks that play by their own rules and are devilishly difficult for non-native speakers to grasp. Let's use one of the expressions mentioned a moment ago as an example. A chip off the old block. Now native English speakers immediately recognize this as the formula for a child that closely resembles a parent. This expression classifies as an idiom because it has a meaning quite different from its grammatical one. If you had heard this expression for the first time you could not have guessed its hidden meaning from the literal words chip and old block. Spanish speakers know an interesting expression when VFL vanity which translates a green old man. But does it literally refer to one. Well it does not because

in Spanish Green is the color of lechery. So one vehicle very day would be what we call a dirty old man and that is the essence of an idiom. A fixed set of words whose total meanings are different from the sum of their parts. I'm Christi the wordsmith from famine Bozeman Montana. If you're a dictionary lover you can find dozens of dictionary titles on the bibliography page of my website. Wordsmith radio dot org. CHRISTIE The wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Pseud web dot com.