Idiom

An idiom is a literary technique that makes no sense. Once explained, however, it can become witty and engaging.

Introduction

An idiom is something that, at one point in time, made sense to a certain group of people. There may have been a joke, accident or event which these people found memorable, and an expression entered the English language to reflect this.

Over time, however, the original meaning of this expression became lost, yet the saying itself remained, becoming an idiom.

Writers can use idioms as a shortcut in their writing to quickly or humorously communicate an idea; however, this technique relies upon the reader being familiar with the expression. 

Understanding Idioms

I hunted high and low for an example to explain how idioms work, but could not find one that cut the mustard. 

Hmmm.

Either that sentence made sense or it didn't. 

If it did make sense, you are familiar with the idioms hunting high and low and cut the mustard, and you understood that the sentence means I looked for an example to explain how idioms work, but could not find one that was good enough. 

By contrast, if the sentence did not make sense to you, it must have been very strange to read. Nevertheless, it is a useful example of how idioms can either be engaging and fun, or confusing and unhelpful. This is because an idiom is an expression in which the individual words carry no significant meaning, but the overall expression does have meaning if we are familiar with it. 

In the case of cut the mustard, the words themselves appear to be nonsensical; however, the expression used to refer to whether a scythe was sharp enough to cut tough mustard stalks. 

The expression proved so popular that it stuck around to become an idiom, and we can now use it to refer to whether or not someone or something is good enough for a particular task. 

Using Idioms

As with an allusion, the effectiveness of an idiom depends on whether or not the audience is familiar with its meaning. 

If the audience recognises and understands an idiom, a connection is formed between the writer and reader through the shared understanding of cultural meaning. In other words, the reader likes that the writer speaks their language. 

However, if the reader is not familiar with an idiom because it hasn't been explained to them, or they have a different cultural background, they may feel foolish or excluded. 

Therefore, we should consider our intended audience carefully when using idioms in our writing.

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