expressions, idioms, phrases, whatever you call them, baffle me. my husband uses them regularly in his daily vocabulary, and i often stop him to explain what he's trying to say because i don't recognize the string of words he's using. at first, this was somewhat amusing to him since expressions are part of his natural language, but now he's accustomed to defining a phrase after he's used one and is met with a blank stare.
since i'm a wheel of fortune junkie, i discovered this hiccup affected my game while playing along at home. normally solving puzzles fairly easily with only a few letters visible and often shouting out answers before the contestants, i was surprisingly mute during the 'phrase' category. it was always more difficult than any other puzzle. every time that category was announced, i would find myself filled with dread.
"i suck at phrases," i remarked huffily to my husband, frustrated.
"that's okay.. it's only because you don't know them," he reminded me.
well, that was true. then i thought about why, and the answer was simple and clear. my parents had moved to the states for graduate school, so the only colloquialisms they would know were in chinese which hadn't been passed down to us. and my sisters and me, with english as our first language, wouldn't have heard any of those silly expressions growing up.
and they're everywhere! a few times each week, someone has used a saying or i've read a phrase somewhere or an expression has somehow made it on my radar, and i make a note to look it up or ask my husband about it. he's like my phraseology translator. it's amazing how many there are that most, who've been exposed to and have utilized expressions as casually as a manner of speaking, probably wouldn't even notice. to me, it's probably enough to make up a whole other language.
meanwhile, fingers crossed, i'm going to conquer that darn phrase category someday. even if it kills me.
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