Idioms are important parts of speech

By Georgie Bright Kunkel

When one has lived as long as I have, idioms begin to be a great part of everyday speech. I didn't realize how much a part they are until we hired health aides to care for my husband. I am sure that our aide from Nigeria needs an interpreter to figure out what I am saying much of the time. Even I don't know the exact meaning of some of my colorful speech or where it originated. So I decided to keep a log of these interesting ways to describe things.

One of my favorites is the term discombooberated. The dictionary says discombobulated. Either one means that I am upset. And then there is a way to feel better when one has made a mistake. No use crying over spilt milk. I wish I had learned that lesson a long time ago. Having lived the frugal life in a small town, spilled milk meant that we would go without until one of us kids could walk down the lane to Mrs. Kaier's barn after the next morning's milking. Anything that was spilled or broken was a catastrophe.

Fortunately there are happy idioms as well as those declaring failure. But I could never figure out why my mother would say that a watched pot never boils. I thought I would test that one and stayed by the pot of water until bubbles rose up and steam emanated out from under the lid. "Mom," I would call out. "I watched the pot and it boiled." But then I was always one for testing the waters, so to speak.

Many a night when I was a kid I would lie awake wondering where I had come from and how I got here on Earth. It was mind-boggling to me. In a world where there is a beginning and an end, to think about the universe having no beginning and no end was scary. No wonder the ancients told the story of a supreme being creating all of us. Then at least all the little kids like me would have an answer for it all and we wouldn't be so scared of the unknown.

I understand what it means to walk a tightrope. Our neighborhood kids would sometimes string a rope between two trees and try to walk it, wobbling back and forth until they plunged down to the ground. Since it wasn't far off the ground it wasn't a disastrous experience, but we sensed how dangerous it would be if it were strung higher up on the tree.

There used to be an old steam engine that would be added to our local train to pull the cars up the old Napavine hill out of Chehalis and then drop off when everything leveled off. So when anyone said they were letting off steam, we right away visualized the engine's puffing up the hill with a trail of vapor rising into the sky.

Until I met my husband, whose family had good old Missouri roots, I thought I had heard them all. But no. He was always saying stuff like "That isn't worth sour owl crap." One has to be near to nature to understand that one. My husband's mother would always describe the richest woman in town as Miz Gotrocks. Supposedly it meant that she wore the biggest diamond ever sold in the local jewelry store. I learned later about other ways that the high ranking woman asserted her position as married to the highest level male in town. She had that quick eyebrow raise that put other women in their places.

Well, with all that said, I must hit the trail as it is getting late. You all know what hit the trail means I am sure.

Georgie Bright Kunkel is a freelance writer who can be reached at 206-935-8663 or gnkunkel@comcast.net