There is one message totalling 33 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
   1. What is the idiom?
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Date:    Tue, 21 Apr 1998 20:50:42 +0400
From:    ANDY <bigboss@ELLINK.RU>
Subject: What is the idiom?

Hello,
my name is Leo Myasnikov. I teach English to students of agriculture
here in Russia and am interested in idioms (all our life is an idiom, isn't it?).

Don't you think it would be safer for our further activities to accept a
working definition of the idiom? Practically all language units seem to be
idiomatic, I think. English due to curb ways of its evolution shows a very
high degree of idiomacity. There is a threat that we might just get drowned
in it. Shall we consider  on the list such a specific thing like phrasal
verbs (let down, get up, back off, etc)? They resemble in a way German
prepositional verbs (uebersetzen, aufstehen, etc) but are, nevertheless,
markedly idiosyncratic of English.

EvaMarie mentioned in her letter that we were not supposed to confine
ourselves to English entirely. Another suggestion is citing broader contexts
f the idioms that you offer to other people on the list. Even Karen, evidently
a native speaker, could not 100 per cent tell the meaning of "she goes like
ixty at fifty". Sounds pretty much like an occasional phrase.

And last, "get the nod" seems to have only an arbitrary connection with
horse races. It must have come from the "body language" - when you give a
nod you approve of something and you speech partner getting your nod
understans you OK. There are similar phrases (and corresponding gestures)
in most of the European languages, including Russian.

Leo Myasnikov

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End of LINGO-L Digest - 20 Apr 1998 to 22 Apr 1998
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