By Adrian Chiles
A survey revealed that certain idioms are falling out of use. But we may miss their playfulness
I’ve never used the expression “casting pearls before swine”; in fact, I’ve just had to look up exactly what it means. I’m therefore neither surprised nor upset that it seems to be falling out of common use. Of the 2,000 people aged between 18 and 50 surveyed by the research agency Perspectus Global, 78%, like me, had never uttered it. Next on the list, disappointingly, is the, to my mind, rather useful “nailing one’s colours to a mast”, tied at 71% with “colder than a witch’s tit”, which I’ve neither liked nor found a use for – just like “pip pip”, in the fourth place.
It is to be hoped that while these things will fall in and out of favour, our language will always be rich with them. At their best they’re poetic, at least in the sense that their meaning might need a moment’s thought.
Allow me to share some personal favourites. Only the other day, a friend of mine with a strong Swansea accent described something as “wet as an otter’s pocket”. Excellent. Another one I heard once and have used ever since relates to suddenly finding oneself in an environment where there are many people to whom you’re sexually attracted. In such circumstances you may or may not resemble “a one-eyed cat in a fish factory” – but, my word, how fine a phrase this is.
Post-match football phone-ins on local radio are a rich source of these beauties. We had a full-back at West Brom who was great at going on marauding runs but struggled to keep the ball as he did so. He was, in the words of one caller, “like a dog with a balloon”. And I’m afraid he was.
Best – or worst – of all, though, was a goalkeeper we had who, in the view of one caller to BBC Radio WM, “couldn’t keep a clean sheet on his honeymoon”. Sorry for the coarseness there – but come on: what’s not to love?
Source: The Guardian