Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@m...> wrote:

>13. Strewth!  (Old Australian oath, meaning 'God's Truth'.)
Why is this an idiom?  Is it because it is a contraction of a longer
expression?  That doesn't fit any definition of "idiom" that I
know.  That would make "don't," "won't," etc., idioms.  If "strewth"
is any idiom, than so is "zounds!" and "whoops!" and "oh!"
and "heavens!" and any other interjection available to a language.

>9.  It's only two miles as the crow flies.  (People will always
>give you the straight line distance when the only available
>track is steep, winding, dangerous and almost impossible to
>find ...)
I had second thoughts about making a comment on this one, but then
I thought, "Oh, what the hell!  In for a penny, in for a pound."
(Hey, that's an idiom!) It has to do, not with the crow thing which
is an idiom IMO, but with the "people always..." part.  One of my
major pet peeves is generalizations when they aren't accurate.  I
live in the Blue Ridge Mtns. of Virginia.  Folks up here would never
give distances nowadays "as the crow flies."  That crow doesn't have
to pay for gas.  We actually have paved roads here and our vehicles
have odometers.  We know how far it is from point A to point B.  If
I tell an inquirer that it is 25 miles to my mission church, he
might not be pleased that the trip was 33 miles long!  No, people
don't ALWAYS "give you the straight line distance, etc."  But then
again, maybe I'm just overreacting to hyperbole.  If so, I apologize
for the ranting!

Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/user:caeruleancentaur

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