Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville Office
Weather: Mid-60s and Rainy
I’ve been searching children’s books for idioms and trying to discover at what age kids begin to understand that symbolic phrases can add to or give the meaning of concrete reality. When does a child learn that “letting the cat out of the bag” means revealing a secret and not literally what the words say?
I’m sure a great deal of this understanding comes from a particular culture the child is born into. Does a child from an Irish family pick up idioms faster than one from an English family? And within the same locale or nationality, do children from lower and from higher class cultures learn idioms at different rates–which suggests that idioms may be vehicles of hiding true meaning as well as revealing it to a fuller extent.
But back to children’s books: One story that sticks with me is the age-old tale of Epaminondas, in which an African-American boy’s mother repeatedly says to him, “You ain’t got the sense God promised a fishing worm.” Back is the 1930s, Arna Bontemps realized the derogatory effects of that idiom on children and recast the story into a sunny account about a boy and his dog going hunting entitled, “You Can’t Pet a Possum.” He saved the idiomatic sense for the story while deleting the down-putting aspects about the boy.
Very young children who are just learning language may say things innocently with idiomatic meaning. I heard a 3-year-old say when she saw a dog going in a barn, “That dog lives with the pigs,” which makes us adults smile because we use “living like pigs” to describe human squalor.
It’s a rare idiom that makes its way into a picture book or even a biography or chapter book. I recently read The Year of the Bomb by Ronald Kidd. Set in 1955, it’s a fast-paced adventure about the filming of the Body Snatchers and a possible Communist conspiracy. I didn’t find any idioms, and I don’t think it needed any.
I’m racking my brain for the idioms I heard as a child, but a life of education and editing has almost wiped the slate clean! Wish I’d kept a list. Have you?
I can’t say I kept a list from childhood but I love idioms, and two of my picture books are based on idioms. In fact, it raised an interesting question because they tried to change the titles because their concern was that idioms wouldn’t translate well. In the end we stuck with the originals, and they appear to have translated just fine (each is now in 5 languages).
Edgar Wallace’s Monkey Business is a wonderful collection of richly illustrated idioms, Bats About Baseball by Jean Little & Claire Mackay uses idioms (and lots of language play), and There’s a Frog in my Throat: 440 Animal Sayings a Little Bird Told Me by Loreen Leedy & Pat Street is also a great introduction to a variety of idioms.
When I visit schools, one of my favorite activities is to have children draw what they think an idiom would look like taken literally. And I offer a teacher guide based on idioms, too. They are just too much fun!
Valerie, you should be writing a blog on idioms! Thanks for mentioning Jean Little’s book–so timely here at World Series time.
Etta
Just a few off the top of my head:
Teach an old dog new tricks.
More than one way to skin a squirrel.
Until the cows come home.
Works like a charm.
Beat a dead horse.
Spilled the beans.
Up in flames.
How about Fred Gwynne’s The King Who Rained?
Ever since I started my “Dogs and Cats” blog with idioms I seem to notice them much more now than I have ever done in a lifetime- I’ve even picked up some on this blog from your readers and used them here: http://evauliandogsandcats.blogspot.com/.
Do continue with these blogs Etta, I simply love them, full of sparks to light up one’s enthusiasm.
From my childhood:
Meaner than a snake.
Behind the wood shed.
Pants a-fire.
Snatch a knot in your rear.
Rise and shine, sunshine.
I’m from the South, in case you can’t tell.
Jean
http://write2ignite.wordpress.com
So many good idioms! It may be time to start a collection. Jean referred to being from the South in her list above, and I suspect that idioms are more used in that area–but I could be prejudiced.
My Dad uses idioms almost daily; it’s just his way. When asked “how are you?” he replies, “Fine as frog’s hair,” or “Good as any, better than most.”
When he doesn’t approve of a decision, he shrugs and says, “Whatever floats your boat.”
To respond to a less than desirable situation, he says, “Well, it’s better than a sharp stick in your eye.”
He always wants “the whole nine yards.”
Someone acting foolishly has “lost his marbles.”
My grandmother used to tell me she loved me “a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.” I don’t think my grandkids would have the faintest idea what a bushel and a peck are. As I recall, I had to have them explained to me, but then in those days we also studied them in math class.
I know my grandma used to tell me to keep my “cotton-picking” hands off things, but the best story I remember was of when she frightened me as a young child with a halloween mask and I literally screamed the words “bloody murder” as had been so often described. I’m sure other children learn, as I did, the true meaning of idioms when they hear the re-tellings and realize that by their innocent mistake, they have brought tears of laughter to so many people.
I recently completed my first middle-grade novel manuscript. It is set in southeastern Kentucky. Some of the idioms familiar in that region show up especially in the dialog. When I was researching in the area, I spoke with Dr. Loyal Jones, director of Appalachian studies at Berea College. “Come as close to the dialect as you can,” he told me, “but be sure you get the idioms right.”