I’ve always been enamored with idioms. Maybe it comes from my mother, who loves studying Etymology, the history and evolution of words over the thousands of years human-kind has used them as a form of communication.
English may be one of the hardest languages to learn for foreigners because of our dependence on them in so many situations. Having a bad day? You may be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Having a great day? You could be on cloud nine.
We don’t realize it because its so common, but every article we read is chocked full (there’s another one!) of idioms. An article I read today included “getting down to business”, “everybody on the same page”, “tight-lipped“. And that was just in the first few graphs.
While it is interesting to see the way our language is evolving, it brings up other issues too. So many athletes and celebrities resort to using idioms and euphemisms when giving interviews to hide the truth from the fans. It’s understandable that the athletes may not want to inform the rest of the league and fans about matters that should stay private, but when it gets to a point where an athlete is saying “We’ve been working on some things, and we’re doing them better”, that helps no one and only creates more mystery.
It’s time that athletes, and everyone really, stops hiding behind the wonderful phrases we have in our language.
I hope for a day when I can read an article, or listen to an interview, and hear an athlete say “We’ve been working on hitting the opposite way, and we’ve put in over five hours a day at it, and I think we’re improving as a team“.
See, that was a piece of cake!
Dan Karell's Blog 