Untranslatable Idioms

Untranslatable Idioms!

What the heck IS an … Idiom?

Well, according to Dictionary.com (my personal favourite on-line dictionary, along with my personal favourite on-line thesaurus Thesaurus.com!) ….

idiom [ id-ee-uh m ]
SEE SYNONYMS FOR idiom ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

    1. an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements, as kick the bucket or hang one’s head, or from the general grammatical rules of a language, as the table round for the round table, and that is not a constituent of a larger expression of like characteristics.
    2. a language, dialect, or style of speaking peculiar to a people.
    3. a construction or expression of one language whose parts correspond to elements in another language but whose total structure or meaning is not matched in the same way in the second language.
    4. the peculiar character or genius of a language.
    5. a distinct style or character, in music, art, etc.: the idiom of Bach.

My favourite of ALL the above is #4! Anytime you can use the words ‘peculiar, genius and language’ in a single phrase or sentence, you grab my immediate attention! 👍

All of us use idioms each and every day, without even thinking about them! There are so many examples, and I bet you will have used at least ONE of the ‘15 Most Common English Idioms and Phrases” listed below, maybe even before your first cup of coffee this morning!

  1. ‘The best of both worlds’
  2. ‘Speak of the devil’
  3. ‘See eye to eye’
  4. ‘Once in a blue moon’
  5. ‘When pigs fly’
  6. ‘To cost an arm and a leg’
  7. ‘A piece of cake’
  8. ‘Let the cat out of the bag’
  9. ‘To feel under the weather’
  10. ‘To kill two birds with one stone’
  11. ‘To cut corners’
  12. ‘To add insult to injury’
  13. ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover’
  14. ‘Break a leg’
  15. ‘To hit the nail on the head’
  16. ‘A blessing in disguise’
  17. ‘Call it a day’
  18. ‘Let someone of the hook’
  19. ‘No pain no gain’
  20. ‘Bite the bullet’
  21. ‘Getting a taste of your own medicine’
  22. ‘Giving someone the cold shoulder’
  23. ‘The last straw’
  24. ‘The elephant in the room’
  25. ‘Stealing someone’s thunder’

Oh, and yes, this is a site listed at ZOHO! LOL! And English is not alone in the use of Idioms:

And, of course, these and MANY MORE CALL Facility links are at, you guessed it (insert shameless promotion here!) … ZOHO! And my FAVOURITE language idiom is the cartoon below, in Japanese about ‘Wearing a cat on your head’ !! Click HERE to find out what it means!

TTFN!