Jenifer’s Shelter Island Journal: Idioms’ delight
As I finish up this column, hope you’re “all ears,” because this comes “straight from the horse’s mouth:” Nobody “dropped the ball” as far as the Island fireworks were concerned this past Saturday — they weren’t “fair to middling,” no! They were spectacular! In fact, the week before, the collective efforts of several Island organizations had also really “hit the mark” in a wonderful hometown semi-quincentennial 4th of July parade.
Turns out, at least here on this island that, though the lead-up to our adolescent nation’s 250th has been burdened with the weight of controversy and existential angst for years now, the whole long 4th of July weekend and the fireworks this past Saturday were a sunny, sparkly, swell celebration of the America we all long for. What a welcome surprise!
I had a swath of family visiting for the 7/4 weekend. We were all at my Island daughter and son-in-law’s house, swimming and sunning by their beautiful pool. I’d been musing about a subject for this column, leaning toward something topical and heavy-ish. I went into the kitchen for some water, my two grandsons, cousins, coming in fast behind me. One of their mothers poked her head in and said something about being “happy as a clam.” One of the boys looked up and asked just what was so darn happy about a clam?
Great question and kind of amusing — their thumbs got busy and within half a minute they had an AI answer: “The full saying is ‘happy as a clam at high tide’ (or sometimes ‘at high water’). The idiom emerged in the 19th-century northeastern United States, where clamming was common …I t makes perfect sense because when the tide is high, they are safely submerged and out of reach.”
And that was the beginning — the boys and I, cooling off in the kitchen, checking out old sayings, puzzling adages, and, yes, idioms — i.e.: figurative language that makes English one of the most fascinating — sometimes flummoxing — languages on earth, and “hands down,” the most fun. Even more importantly, I had a title for this column — a little piece of wordplay that I thought was original to me, but apparently, as I’ve learned since, there are a couple of books with that very same title, which debunks my conceit.
No matter, “idiom’s delight” itself is wordplay on the title of a play, and then a movie, from the 1930’s, “Idiot’s Delight”— a satire about the lunacy of war that had, in turn, taken its title from a now-obscure English card game that required little thought and no strategy, and which was known, therefore, as “Idiot’s Delight.” (I need to confess to you now, before this goes any further, that after all the invective with which I’ve showered “technology” in general and “A.I.” specifically, in this one regard, at least — as a quick, mostly accurate research tool — I’ve developed an unnerving fondness for it, that’s all I’m saying.)
Speaking of saying(s), phrases, expressions, slogans, etc., an “idiom” is an “odd duck” even among them. According to dictionary.com, “An idiom is a phrase or expression whose symbolic meaning cannot be understood just by looking at the literal definitions of its individual words…or understood from the combined meanings of its elements (such as ‘up in the air’).” “Clear as mud,” right? “As “a rule of thumb:” “All idioms are sayings, but all sayings are not idioms.”
Clearly, being unsure of its definition doesn’t impede us from using idioms and other types of familiar phrases all the time, without having any idea of their full meaning. Along with the “happy as a clam,” there’s also “The early bird catches the worm…” favorite, which seems to extol the benefits of early-rising, until you learn of the caveat provided by the entire phrase: “…but the second mouse gets the cheese.” And how about the popular “Curiosity killed the cat…” which seems to warn against delving too deeply into finding answers to mysteries that may be better left alone. In the 1900’s, however, the phrase was extended to include “…but satisfaction brought it back,” which implies that, risk notwithstanding, there’s pleasure in finding out something you really want to know. And those are just some examples out of hundreds — the Internet is full of fascinating fun facts about our language. In fact, that’s one of its major functions — amusing and entertaining us. It’s hard to remember that in this “truth vs. lies” world we’re living in, when we’re all “at sixes and sevens,” not knowing what to believe.
Maybe I’m pretty “long in the tooth,” so sometimes writing a column can be “like pulling teeth,” but this time, taking delight in idioms, et al, I “got a kick out of it!”
You know what they say: “Keep your nose to the grindstone,” and “it’s a piece of cake.”
Idioms’ delight
As I finish up this column, hope you’re “all ears,” because this comes “straight from the horse’s mouth:” Nobody “dropped the ball” as far as the Island fireworks were concerned this past Saturday — they weren’t “fair to middling,” no! They were spectacular! In fact, the week before, the collective efforts of several Island organizations had also really “hit the mark” in a wonderful hometown semi-quincentennial 4th of July parade.
Turns out, at least here on this island that, though the lead-up to our adolescent nation’s 250th has been burdened with the weight of controversy and existential angst for years now, the whole long 4th of July weekend and the fireworks this past Saturday were a sunny, sparkly, swell celebration of the America we all long for. What a welcome surprise!
I had a swath of family visiting for the 7/4 weekend. We were all at my Island daughter and son-in-law’s house, swimming and sunning by their beautiful pool. I’d been musing about a subject for this column, leaning toward something topical and heavy-ish. I went into the kitchen for some water, my two grandsons, cousins, coming in fast behind me. One of their mothers poked her head in and said something about being “happy as a clam.” One of the boys looked up and asked just what was so darn happy about a clam? Great question and kind of amusing — their thumbs got busy and within half a minute they had an AI answer: “The full saying is ‘happy as a clam at high tide’ (or sometimes ‘at high water’). The idiom emerged in the 19th-century northeastern United States, where clamming was common …I t makes perfect sense because when the tide is high, they are safely submerged and out of reach.”
And that was the beginning — the boys and I, cooling off in the kitchen, checking out old sayings, puzzling adages, and, yes, idioms — i.e.: figurative language that makes English one of the most fascinating — sometimes flummoxing — languages on earth, and “hands down,” the most fun. Even more importantly, I had a title for this column — a little piece of wordplay that I thought was original to me, but apparently, as I’ve learned since, there are a couple of books with that very same title, which debunks my conceit. No matter, “idiom’s delight” itself is wordplay on the title of a play, and then a movie, from the 1930’s, “Idiot’s Delight”— a satire about the lunacy of war that had, in turn, taken its title from a now-obscure English card game that required little thought and no strategy, and which was known, therefore, as “Idiot’s Delight.” (I need to confess to you now, before this goes any further, that after all the invective with which I’ve showered “technology” in general and “A.I.” specifically, in this one regard, at least — as a quick, mostly accurate research tool — I’ve developed an unnerving fondness for it, that’s all I’m saying.)
Speaking of saying(s), phrases, expressions, slogans, etc., an “idiom” is an “odd duck” even among them. According to dictionary.com, “An idiom is a phrase or expression whose symbolic meaning cannot be understood just by looking at the literal definitions of its individual words…or understood from the combined meanings of its elements (such as ‘up in the air’).” “Clear as mud,” right? “As “a rule of thumb:” “All idioms are sayings, but all sayings are not idioms.”
Clearly, being unsure of its definition doesn’t impede us from using idioms and other types of familiar phrases all the time, without having any idea of their full meaning. Along with the “happy as a clam,” there’s also “The early bird catches the worm…” favorite, which seems to extol the benefits of early-rising, until you learn of the caveat provided by the entire phrase: “…but the second mouse gets the cheese.” And how about the popular “Curiosity killed the cat…” which seems to warn against delving too deeply into finding answers to mysteries that may be better left alone. In the 1900’s, however, the phrase was extended to include “…but satisfaction brought it back,” which implies that, risk notwithstanding, there’s pleasure in finding out something you really want to know. And those are just some examples out of hundreds — the Internet is full of fascinating fun facts about our language. In fact, that’s one of its major functions — amusing and entertaining us. It’s hard to remember that in this “truth vs. lies” world we’re living in, when we’re all “at sixes and sevens,” not knowing what to believe.
Maybe I’m pretty “long in the tooth,” so sometimes writing a column can be “like pulling teeth,” but this time, taking delight in idioms, et al, I “got a kick out of it!”
You know what they say: “Keep your nose to the grindstone,” and “it’s a piece of cake.”
