An interesting thing about idioms is that even though they are made up of more than one linguistic unit (the morphemes that build the words that build the phrase), they are generally treated as one unit. If a word or even a morpheme that grammatically marks a word in an idiom is changed, it usually loses its idiomatic meaning. For example: when wishing an actor good luck we say, "break a leg," but if the actor did well we would not say, "he broke a leg." Also, you can "beat a dead horse... Read Full Story

I am currently reading a memoir about a Jewish family living in Tennessee in the 1920's. The title of the book is "The Jew Store" and it is a very enjoyable read that I would recommend to anyone. At any rate, I bring this up because I came across an idiom in the book that I had not previously heard. The idiom refers to lack of trust and basically says that when you don't trust someone - you trust them "about as much as a goat in the gladiolas." This got me to thinking about the role... Read Full Story

To stick with the theme of yesterday's post about oronyms, very similar to oronyms are mondegreens. While oronyms result from not knowing where one word ends and the next begins in speech, mondegreens usually result from hearing entirely different words that sound similar. And more importantly, the term mondegreen is generally used when referring to song lyrics. Here are some examples of mondegreens: Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix "Excuse me while I kiss the sky." heard as "Excuse me while I... Read Full Story

In speech, it is often hard to tell where one word ends and the next begins. The result of this phenomenon is a string of words that sounds the same as another string of words but is spelled differently and is composed of different words with different meanings. These strings of words are called oronyms. A classic oronym that many people grew up singing is, "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream." Here are a few more oronyms to have fun with: The florist had tulips of... Read Full Story

For my fellow word lovers, if this email has not found its way to your in box, check it out --- How do non-natives ever learn all the nuances of English??? There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is "UP." It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for... Read Full Story

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I have always been a huge fan of crossword puzzles and, in a round-about way, my love of crossword puzzles was partly responsible for my decision to study linguistics in graduate school. So naturally, I tend to semantically analyze crossword puzzle clues while working a puzzle. As a result, I believe that the relationship between crossword puzzles and semantics should be seen as reciprocal because working a puzzle not only calls on semantic knowledge, it also reinforces and adds to a person's... Read Full Story

A good friend and I were tossing around some words recently and she mentioned the word paregoric. Though the word is not commonly used outside of the medical profession anymore, I think it should be. Not only is paregoric a pleasant sounding word, it is also far less embarrassing to ask a pharmacist for a paregoric than an antidiarrheal. Paregoric is defined in medical dictionaries as: A camphorated tincture of opium, taken internally for the relief of diarrhea and intestinal pain... Read Full Story

Though I have not seen (nor do I have any desire to see) the new Indiana Jones sequel, my 13-year-old son (who has seen the series in its entirety) tells me that it deserves each and every one of the bad reviews it has received. Indeed, according to the July 7/July 14 issue of Newsweek, a new phrase was coined only two days after the movie opened on May 22 that enunciates the extent of the movie's tanking. The phrase is "nuke the fridge" and it is comparable in movie lingo to television's... Read Full Story

There are many ways an individual's dialect can be used as a form of identity. People who speak the Upper Peninsula or "Yooper" dialect are able to use their dialect as a form of identity by choosing not to switch to a more common dialect for their audience in an effort to make those who don't speak the dialect feel left out. This has been called a We-type solidarity because it gives the impression that speakers of the dialect think they are better than others and contributes to the us-them... Read Full Story