Interesting Quotes About Idioms

citaty People use idioms to catch their language richer and more colorful and to convey subtle shades of meaning or intention. Idioms ar utilize often to replace a literal word or expression, and many times the idiom better(p) describes the full nuance of meaning. Idioms and idiomatic expressions can be more precise than the literal run-in, often use fewer words but saying more. For example, the expression it runs in the family is shorter and more succinct than saying that a physical or personality trait is fairly common throughout unrivaleds extended family and over a number of generations. (Gail Brenner, Websters New World American Idioms Handbook. Websters New World, 2003) ? If natural language had been designed by a logician, idioms would not exist. (Philip Johnson-Laird, 1993) Idioms, in general, are deeply connected to culture. . . . Agar (1991) proposes that biculturalism and bilingualism are two sides of the same coin. occupied in the intertwined process of culture c hange, learners have to understand the full meaning of idioms. (Sam Glucksberg, Understanding Figurative Language. Oxford Univ. Press, 2001) ? Shakespeares Idioms Shakespeare is impute with coining more than 2,000 words, infusing thousands more existing mavens with electrifying new meanings and forging idioms that would last for centuries. A fools paradise, at one fell swoop, hearts content, in a pickle, send him packing, too much of a impregnable thing, the game is up, good riddance, love is blind, and a sorry sight, to name a few. (David Wolman, Righting the Mother Tongue From Olde English to Email, the Tangled drool of English Spelling. Harper, 2010) ? Levels of Transparency Idioms vary in transparency that is, whether their meaning can be derived from the literal meanings of the individual words. For example, excite up ones mind is rather transparent in suggesting the meaning reach a decision, while throw in the towel the bucket is far from transparent in representing th e meaning die. (Douglas Biber et al. , Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Pearson, 2002) The thought have-to doe with me that this was a pretty pathetic way to bang the bucketbeing accidentally poisoned during a moving-picture show shoot, of all thingsand I started weeping at the idiocy of it all. (Lara St.John) ? The Idiom Principle The observation that meanings are make in chunks of language that are more or less predictable, though not fixed, sequences of morphemes leads John Sinclair in Corpus concord Collocation, 1991 to an articulation of the idiom principle. He states the principle thus The principle of idiom is that a language user has available to him or her a large number of semi-preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices, even though they magnate appear to be analysable into segments (Sinclair 1991) 110) The study of fixed phrases has a fairly long tradition . . , but phrases are normally seen as outside the normal organising princi ple of language. Here, Sinclair extends the notion of phraseology to encompass a large deal more of language than it is commonly considered to encompass. At its strongest, we might say that all senses of all words exist in and are identified by the sequences of morphemes in which they typically occur. (Susan Hunston and Gill Francis, Pattern Grammar A Corpus-Driven Approach to the Lexical Grammar of English.John Benjamins, 2000) ? Modal Idioms Modal idioms are idiosyncratic verbal formations which consist of more than one word and which have modal meanings that are not predictable from the constituent parts (compare the non-modal idiom kick the bucket). Under this heading we include have got to, had better/best, would rather/sooner/as soon, and be to. (Bas Aarts, Oxford neo English Grammar. Oxford University Press, 2011)