Talk:List of idioms in the English language/Archive 1

5400
Friends, I have a list of 5400 idioms in the English language that I have collected myself. (I own the copyright.) I am thinking of entering them into the Wikipedia.


 * Normally lists, facts and figures are not copyrightable. A list of idioms and your interpretation of them maybe (like a dictionary is copyrightable, but not the list of words within).  I say lets make a master list of idioms and then piece together their meanings here. --ShaunMacPherson 23:27, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Seeing a list of idioms on one page is rather surprising. It would not be good for me to enter 5400 more of them on the same page. Perhaps this list should be a dozen examples, and the others should be entered one per page.

--Ted.

Ted, have a look at List of song titles phrased as questions. Really big lists can still be navigable. 5400 /is/ a lot though, but I can imagine the list will be just about complete! At http://sources.wikipedia.org, you can place your list there and create a link to it from here. Then we can take from your source to add to the article. If we do it that way, (and I see just how many idioms start with the letter A!), we might also be able to find a good way to have them organized without having a single 50MB list :-) --cprompt 14:26, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * We can use the same technique as on the List of Latin Phrases, which automatically merges three subsidiary articles into one whole - only the subsidiaries being editable. I assume more than three subsidiaries are possible, so all 5400 could be in a single article. WLD 20:32, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

On the Esperanto side, some fellow Esperantists and I have been working on something similar to this page, but it's acolleciton of idioms in multiple languages. Each has a literal translation into the reader's language (Esperanto in this case, of course) followed by a definition of what it means. I thought it might be fun to do that here, too&mdash;maybe syncrhonize the two sides? Thoughts? &mdash;LarryGilbert 20:30, 2004 Mar 3 (UTC)

Transwiki/Wiktionary
I came across this page last night: Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Uhh... :-) Should we just move over the idioms to Wiktionary instead?  &mdash;LarryGilbert 00:58, 2004 Mar 5 (UTC)

?
What about the idioms "Pot calling the kettle black" and "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones".

Are these idioms too, if not what are they called? --ShaunMacPherson 23:24, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

EDIT by someone else: No idea how to add a new thread.. anyway.. "Barking up the wrong tree" should be added.. I'm a foreigner so it's not easy to explain ;)


 * "pot calling the kettle black" is usually used as a simile ("that's like the pot calling the kettle black") and "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" is a proverb. "Barking up the wrong tree" should not be added, its a metaphor, not an idiom.

English
I see this page was renamed from "List of idioms" to "List of idioms in the English language". Is there a reason this couldn't be called simply "List of English idioms"? I would think, in context, the meaning should be clear and wouldn't be confused with meaning "idioms belonging to England". And it seems tedious to me to name all possible pages in this way ("List of idioms in the Spanish language", "List of idioms in the French language"...). &mdash;LarryGilbert 04:01, 2004 Mar 30 (UTC)

Idioms, etymology of
It seems to be not generally known that an idiom (in English) is generated and understood (in English) in much the same way as any other foreign word or expression, e.g. "bon appetit", "deja vu", or "e pluribus unum". The difference is ... when we say or write an obviously foreign expression, we know it is "foreign" and we expect the hearer/reader to recognize it as such and understand the meaning it has in the foreign language.

An idiom is a word or (usually) a phrase from an ancestral or foreign language that has become (re)spelled as common words of the target language. This "definition" is in complete agreement with the etymology of the word "idiom"... from Greek for: something that you (borrow and) make your own.

When you use idioms, you do not feel like you are using a foreign word/phrase and the words used may indeed call to mind their ordinary referrents. "It's raining cats and dogs. Be careful. Don't step on that poodle." But the meaning you convey remains the meaning of the original foreign/ancestral term.

There are several types of idioms:

Type 1 - "Clear text" foreign words/phrases that have been transliterated directly into common target-language words. Often the motivation for the original transliteration was to make a pun. ---

Examples using the [ancient sound] of some letters:

Hebrew maBooL GeSHeM SHQi3a = torrent rain descends, anciently sounded like maBooL Ge[T]eM [T]Qi[G]a ==> PoLe CaT aNd DoCGa ==> (raining) cats and dogs. Docga was OE for a 4-legged dog. In Pennsylvania Dutch, one hears (raining) cats and ducks, because their common word for dog is (German) Hund.

Aramaic KiSHoT BaGaD = truth + betray, or betray by revealing the truth, anciently sounded like Ki[T]oT BaGaD ==> (let the) CaT ouT (of the) BaG.

The same KiSHoT = truth occurs in the expression "Has the cat got your tongue?" ... usually said to a child who doesn't want to lie but also doesn't want to utter the truth.

The same BaGaD = betray occurs in the idiom "left holding the bag". You have been betrayed by your friends/associates. They got away, but you are left holding the "bag".


 * There is an alternate explanation for "letting the cat out of the bag" and "left holding the bag", relating to the practice of selling cats hidden in bags to unwitting customers. I don't have a reference for that, though.Phydeaux 19:12, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Swindlers would sell cats in bags to people while advertising it as a pig in a bag (or some other animal worth more than a cat). When the cat is let out of the bag, the swindlers' secret trick was revealed to their customers. Jecowa 03:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

German acht/Achtung = (pay) attention + (Beweg)Grund = (motive), ground(s), basis, reason => "an axe to grind". In other words, beware the motive.

Type 1b - Similar to Type 1 but the ancestral/foreign phrase was a metaphor with a coded (not "clear text") meaning. ---

I'm gonna beat the "livin' daylights" outta ya < liver and lights. The liver is the most dense body part and "lights" was the OE word for lungs, the least dense body part. The meaning was figurative. The speaker did not intend to literally extract the liver and lungs.

"kick (the) bucket" < Semitic aiyin-gimel-bet bet-aiyin-dalet-nun as in Hebrew 3aGav B'3a:DeN = to make (physical) love in Paradise. This is still a Middle-Eastern metaphor for dying. On a less erotic note, we say "He went to his eternal reward." Both expressions are a euphemism for dying, a way to avoid saying "He died."

Type 2 - Translation into the target language of foreign-1 puns that had been transliterated from (usually) "clear text" foreign-1 or foreign-2 words/phrases. --

The classic example is Job 19:20 (to escape) "by the skin of my teeth" meaning "hardly, barely, with difficulty". In Hebrew, Job said B'3or SHiNai = skin of my teeth. But Job was making a euphemistic pun on the Hebrew word B'QoSHi = barely, with difficulty ... at a time when the Hebrew aiyin had a G/K-sound, as in 3aZa = Gaza. Compare SKiN of Teeth with SCaNT = barely enough.

I have found several examples of Latin => Hebrew pun => English translation of the Hebrew pun:

Latin sopor sond = sleep soundly ==> Hebrew (li)SPoR tZoN = count sheep (to go to sleep)

Latin Saccharomyces cervisae = Brewer's yeast ==> Hebrew Sa3aR MiNSHaKH KeLeV = hair bite dog, i.e., "hair of the dog that bit you" = a hangover remedy. Cf the Greek 3-headed dog CeRBerus. Brewer's yeast is a very ancient remedy for a hangover.

Type 1 and Type 2 are sometimes combined in the same expression to form a redundant idiom. -

Example 1: "break a leg" said to an actor to wish him/her good luck. The normal term in Hebrew or Yiddish would be BRaKHa = a blessing. The pun is the Hebrew term for a knee or leg: BeReKH. Both BRaKHa and BeReHK sound like the English word "break". Hence, "break a leg" instead of "a blessing" (on your performance).

Example 2: (cold enough to) "freeze the balls off a brass monkey". It means, cold enough to make you shiver. This phrase probably entered English from Arabic, most dialects of which convert a P-sound to B.

Hebrew PeLeTZ = shiver, tremble. Compare English palsy. Hebrew P'LiZ = brass P to B => BaLLS

Hebrew K'Foo = frozen Hebrew KoF = monkey Drop the K in KoF => oFF

So, "balls off" is a transliteration, while "brass monkey" is a translation, of the Semitic pun P'LiZ KoF = brass monkey on the plain text PeLeTZ K'Foo which means "shiver frozen".

To machine-translate idioms without table look-ups, one may need to determine the original source-language and sometimes to determine an intermediate language from which a translation was made.

As for human usage, the etymology is irrelevant. If e pluribus unum = "out of many, one" had become an English idiom, it might have been spelled "a flower-bush you name", but it would still mean "out of many, one". And it would have been used just like the foreign phrase is used.

ciao,

Israel "izzy" Cohen israel_and_yvettec@012.net.il

Individual articles
I think where possible, each idiom ought to get it's own page. When people "google" for knowledge, they would be more apt to find pages that way. This is because most people would seach for the phrase they seek knowledge of - not for the sentence "list of idioms" 01:47, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"Sword of Damocles"
What does this mean, and where is it actually a common idiom in the English language? I recognize all of the others in this list, but I've never heard of either Damocles or his sword. Did I just imagine being a native English speaker? If it's unique to a certain variant of English, it needs to say so. [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 23:51, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * I'd like to draw attention to this again. Anyone? [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 03:10, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Um, it's actually very well-known. It's so well-known that the Rocky Horror Picture Show made reference to it, starting off a song with o/~ I feel the Sword of Damocles hangin' over my head o/~, without worrying that this would mystify too much of their audience.  If I have any doubts about its inclusion on this page, it's that it's perhaps more of an allusion than an idiom, as opposed to something like "crossing the Rubicon", where people who don't know what a Rubicon is still know it's a point of no return.  But I don't have any doubts about the idiom being common enough to be represented here.  -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:50, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I will take your word for it that there are actually people who use this term (Rocky Horry Picture Show notwithstanding&mdash;a reference in a cult film does not really make an allusion less obscure, and in my experience a lot of musicals are unconcerned with whether their references will mystify most of their audiences), but is it really common enough to belong on this list? There are lots of other mythological allusions that are much more more widely used. (References to Achilles, the Trojan horse, etc., do not really belong on this page, do they?) [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 18:49, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, you can argue if you like that because you didn't know it, it must be too obscure to merit inclusion, but notwithstanding, it is a common allusion used to indicate a situation of imminent peril, and it is primarily the fact that most of us only rarely have to discuss situations of imminent peril (thank goodness) that it's not more commonly used. I did a Google search on it and did not find anyone who was using it as an allusion who felt it necessary to explain the meaning of the allusion, as you might expect if the allusion was appropriate enough to merit usage but obscure.


 * It may be merited to find or start a page more appropriate to mythological allusions, and move Sword of Damocles to that list, but it isn't an obscure expression. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:51, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Idioms, not proverbs
I've moved the following entries (and/or their explanations) to List of English proverbs: I'm not sure questions count as proverbs, but the last two entries are closer to proverbs than idioms, IMO. I also removed my entry, "Above the fold", because that's not an idiom either. - dcljr 05:46, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * A rolling stone gathers no moss.
 * He who pays the piper calls the tune.
 * Still waters run deep.
 * What goes around comes around.
 * What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
 * Why have a dog and bark yourself?
 * Why pay for the cow when the milk is free?

Idioms, not proverbs
I've moved the following entries (and/or their explanations) to List of English proverbs: I'm not sure questions count as proverbs, but the last two entries are closer to proverbs than idioms, IMO. I also removed my entry, "Above the fold", because that's not an idiom either. - dcljr 05:46, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * A rolling stone gathers no moss.
 * He who pays the piper calls the tune.
 * Still waters run deep.
 * What goes around comes around.
 * What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
 * Why have a dog and bark yourself?
 * Why pay for the cow when the milk is free?

Transwiki/Wikiquote
Is this on Wikiquote? If not, it should be. And should this be transwikied to Wikiquotes? 132.205.15.43 17:35, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Enough money to choke a cow
I removed, "enough money to choke a cow" becuase the meaning is perfectly clear from knowing the meanings of all the words that comprise it and therefore it is not an idiom. Qaz 19:38, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't this page be on wikisource?
A list of idioms does not, imho, an encyclopedia make. Alex.tan 07:22, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Every so often someone posts to the talk page about how a list of idioms does not belong in the encyclopedia. Some refer to this not being a dictionary. As for myself, I have seen lots of lists in print encyclopedias but I do not feel strogly about it one way or the other. I would not be overly upset if the naysayers won and this list got absorbed into some sister wiki project, nor would I be upset if the list stayed here. Until it is gone though, I will keep adding to it every so often.Qaz

Curiosity killed the cat
I was redirected to this page after searching for any story or meaning behind the phrase 'Curiosity killed the cat' although there is no mention of it. Would someone care to add it? Jack 00:13, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Done. Ryan Reich 22:15, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Bought the farm
I believe this particular idiom came from US test pilots in the fifties. If a plane crashed on a farmers land (this was actually fairly common) the US air force would compensate thefarmer so handsomely that it it was said to have bought the farm. The test pilots would normally die in these crashes, so having "bought the farm" is dying, but derived from a slightly different context.

Mark Lazarides

From what I was told it comes when someone dies and the life insurance is paid out you use it to buy the farm. so death--life insurance paid out to family- 0family uses money to buy the farm, Robert

Editing suggestion: uniform phrasing standard
Hi, I've been browsing this list for a while, and noticed that there is no uniform standard of pharsing the idioms. For example, see how these two verbs and their explanations are phrased:


 * 1) To bear fruit -  	To come to profitable conclusion or to produce some worthwhile thing.
 * 2) Beat a dead horse -  	Beating a dead horse is to engage in pointless and repetitive discussion. Beating is more common in American idiom, while Flogging a dead horse is more common in Britain.

The two idioms should either both be "1. To bear" and "2. To beat", or both should be "1. Bear" and "2. Beat". Likewise, their explanations should be uniform. e.g., (2) should be simply "to engage in pointless and repetitive discussion.", without "Beating a dead horse is" at the beginning. All in all, the changes I suggest being the following:


 * 1) To bear fruit -  	  To come to profitable conclusion or to produce some worthwhile thing.
 * 2) To beat a dead horse -    To engage in pointless and repetitive discussion. "To beat" is more common in American idiom, while "To flog" is more common in British idiom.

This way, it will be much easier and quicker to read this list.

A few x short of y
I removed this from the end of the meaning section of the idiom in the heading, "Whimsically derived from "A few lawnchairs short of a picnic", with special emphasis on the dearness of syllables (17 altogether) in a Haiku and the sensitivity of the form to nonconformance." It does not seem to me to add anything that is useful or verifiable. Qaz ( talk ) 17:45, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Not Idioms
I don't get it. Almost every entry on this page is not an idiom. Mostly they are euphemisms, allusions or metaphors, there are even some similies. An idiom is a phrase that, based on a literal understanding of the individual words, makes absolutely no sense. for example 'to be fed up with' or 'before long' or 'to pull someone's leg'. While some of the figurative language in this list might be hard for non native english speakers to understand, that does not make them idioms. This list is so erroneous it probably warrants having the entire list removed, or moved to more appropriate categories and starting all over again. (Comment added by User:211.30.0.79) Qaz  ( talk ) 10:42, 14 October 2005 (UTC)


 * The challenge is that there's no hard and fast line between what does or doesn't literally make sense, that I can see. One could argue that being "fed up with" something is not an idiom because anyone could derive from "being fed up", in order: "being entirely fed" -> "being full" -> "not wanting any more". Likewise, "before long" makes a degree of sense literally, because both "before" and "long" can refer to time; more than an idiom, this phrase is just the shortened form of "before a long time (has passed)". Probably the best thing is to bring up any disputed idioms on this talk page so they can be discussed. -Silence 22:55, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

You hit the nail right on the head
I removed this from the list on the basis of it not being an idiom. Qaz ( talk ) 20:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

take with a pinch of salt
I always thought that idiom meant that when someone has a habit of saying rude or unkind things, and one "takes everything he says with a grain of salt" it was an effort to stave off bitterness towards this person, as salt counteracts bitter tastes. Am I wrong?


 * Yep. -Silence 06:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
 * (Idioms and other expressions you would probably be looking for for that meaning would use "sugar" rather than "salt", since sugar, a sweetener, is much more effective than salt at counteracting a bitter taste. Hence "sugar-coating" something removes any bitterness or foulness from it, making it seem "sweeter" than it really is.) -Silence 06:21, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Fall on (one's) sword
Actually, I believe this one derives not from seppuku but rather the Roman practice of taking suicide by impaling oneself on one's own sword over capture. From Shakespeare's Macbeth: "Why should I play the Roman fool, and die: On mine own sword!" etc.

The jig is up
I've always understood this to mean "you've been caught/discovered, so you won't get away with that you're doing, so you might as well stop" - am I not the sharpest brick in the load, or is the entry all sixes and sevens? WilyD 16:44, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

hands off!

An old hand

To lend a hand

Keep at bay

Bed of roses

Let bygones be bygones

beat about the bush

at liberty

know the ropes

silver lining

blow one's own trumpet

read between the lines

sleep on an idea

have a good time

have a soft-spot for someone

pay the price

pull strings

without rhyme or reason

by accident

back down

back up

dead beat

Make a Mountain out of a Molehill
The following text was placed under this idiom today:


 * To cover up a lie with another lie, and cover up that cover-up lie, with another lie yet again, ad infinitum, or until the lie can't be covered anymore.

I don't know what idiom this translates but I do not think it is "mountain out of a molehill". Nonetheless there is clearly an idiom which does have this translation, which is not coming to mind. If anyone can think of it, please replace this appropriately. Ryan Reich 23:48, 13 January 2006 (UTC)


 * "To paint oneself into a corner" perhaps? Is that an idiom? Applejuicefool 21:55, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

He/She wears the pants in the relationship
Should this one be added to the list? I'd do it myself, but I don't know what it means. I think it's something to do with the power balance between the two people, but I'm not sure.

G
All of the other sections are normal, but the idioms under G are different. The idiom section is a lot larger than the meaning section, as is not the case with the other sections (or letters). I do not know how to fix it. {| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" ! width=30% style="background:#efefef;"|Idiom ! width=70% style="background:#efefef;"|Meaning |- I tried pasting that over the same lines for G but it did nothing.


 * Sorted. There was a URL embedded in the text of one entry that should not have been there.  I've removed it and everything is hunky-dory now. WLD 21:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Catch 22
Yossarian tried to get out of combat duty. However the Catch 22 is that the only way to get out of duty is to be declared insane. And, the only way to be declared insane is to mention to the doctor/ file some paperwork stating that you think you are insane. But, clearly, a sane person could not do such a thing. Therefore, the individual must be sane and able to continue combat. (The soldiers were NOT considered INSANE for continuing to fly missions.)

Apologies
I noticed the problem mentioned with non-idioms being the bulk of the list, and somehow have spent the last five hours working out a rewrite of the intro, giving criteria for inclusion. I didn't realize that this was probably quite impolite. But I have a backup of the original if anybody has an objection to the new version. Also, I'd lobby to keep only these from the first two lists:

A coon's age

A few X short of a Y

At sixes and sevens

Axe to grind

From “B,” I’d save:

Babe in arms

Bad taste in one's mouth

Beat a dead horse

Beat around the bush

Being from Missouri

Bells and whistles

Between a rock and a hard place

Bite the dust

Bite the bullet

Black sheep

Bob's your uncle

Bone to pick

Break a leg

Broken his/her duck

Bull in a china shop

Burning the candle at both ends

Bury the hatchet Buy/Bought the farm

Buying a pig in a poke

I think the other entries, some of them useful and interesting, aren't really idioms. Some aren't even idiomatic! What's the consensus? Thanks for being patient with this newbie.
 * I agree that many of the entries in the list should be removed, or moved to somewhere more appropriate, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I've tidied up your text in "what is not an idiom" slightly. One guideline you may want to be aware of isAvoid self-references, which talks about not mentioning the features of wikipedia in a main namespace article. The content of wikipedia is used in many mirrors and forks, and it is confusing for someone reading them to have references to wikipedia or the fact that it can be edited. I've tried to remove some of these self-references.

Be bold when editing this article, and almost any other article on wikipedia; if you make a mistake, someone will fix it eventually. Just remember to explain your edits on talk pages like you are now and use informativeedit summaries when editing wikipedia. Also, you can sign your posts with four tildes like this: "~". -- Graham talk 03:03, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Definition of "idiom"
Who came up with the definition here, and who decided the litmus test included being poetic? None of my dictionaries mention this criterion, and as well, the "poetry" of any particular idiom is POV. Can anyone please enlighten me? SigPig 05:41, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
 * came up with the definition that was added recently. Graham talk 05:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
 * For what its worth, I think poetry is POV as well. WLD 20:28, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, it's got to go. It's POV & uncited, and there's a serviceable definition on the Idiom article itself.SigPig 21:55, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Umm...?
Two comments:
 * 1.This page could be renamed into "List of English Adages".
 * 2. I noticed that there were a few blank sections on the talk page. User:Drahcir my talk  21:24, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

An idiom is not an Adage
The page is a total mishmash of things that are and are not idioms, but renaming it "List of English Adages" would be completely misleading, since an adage is an observational remark, often metaphorical in form. For instance, "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy" and "When it rains, if pours" are both adages, but neither of them is really idiomatic.

Why not? Two reasons. First, neither really points to a particular regionality or social class or anything else that locates an idiom socially. Second, although they are both metaphorical constructions, neither of the adages is phrased in such a way that somebody might not be able to deduce from their semantic content what is being said. A good example of an idiom that meets both of these criteria (which, by the way, are sufficient conditions for something being an idiom, but not necessary ones, meaning that an idiom doesn't need to meet both standards) would be "monday week": A person hearing this phrase can be fairly certain that the person using it is either from Britain or has recently been spending time there, but unless the person hearing it were previously familiar with the meaning of the phrase, he or she might have a very difficult time figuring out that it means "the monday falling one week after next monday"--in other words, if it's Saturday and I say "I'll see you Monday week" I mean I'll be seeing you in nine days, not two.

In fact, one is hard-pressed to find many instances of adages on the idiom page. Unfortunately, one is also rather hard-pressed to find many clear instances of idioms. "A coon's age" and "All mouth and no tousers" are the only examples that I'd keep under "A"--both of them being cases whereby the user's regional origin might be guessed--but I'm not about to start an editing war with anybody. Buck Mulligan 05:58, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

lose one's nerve
I added "lose one's nerve" to the list with a meaning that is practically the same as the one givenhere.

Is this okay? Are there any copyright issues that we have to worry about? 08:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't give a monkeys
This is a British expression meaning you don't care that is always left unfinished. Example - Q:"What do you think of David Beckham's new hairstyle?" - A:"I couldn't give a monkey's". A monkey's what though?-

Australian, British, Indian, American variants?
I think it would be useful to split the article into sections, each dealing with the idioms used in each variant of English. The reason I think this would be useful as there are idioms used in non-British English with which I am not familar.

Examples are:


 * Jumping the shark (America)
 * Coming the raw prawn (Australian)
 * As right as ninepence (British)
 * He is a 420 (Indian)
 * Hockeyed them out of it (Irish)
 * Waka jumping (New Zealand)

WLD 16:40, 5 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I reverted it because

You can add usage notes in the "meaning" column. Otherwise, there's no point in splitting the idioms. This is a global encyclopedia & separating it by country defeats the purpose of a worldwide perspective. What's so bad about learning about new idioms you haven't heard about in your home country? Nothing. It doesn't need to be split. I like the organization as it is, simple and useful. All usage notes should be noted in the "meaning" column. The reason some of them don't have usage notes is because I have no idea where some of them are used other than the USA but if other people know they can add it. --User:Carie


 * Hi Carie. You can/should sign your comments on the talk page with three or four tildes like this  or this ~ . Your are advocating a prescriptionist view, forcing people to learn new idioms.  I don't beleive that it NPOV - having a usage column encourages people to add usage notes and give you some idea of where idioms are used.  Sorry aout the comment on your talk page - for some reason my browser didn't show your comment on the article's talk page - probably a local cache issue somewhere. WLD 20:11, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Basically on WLD's side on this one. (Thanks for the heads-up btw.) It is _exactly_ because this is a global encyclopedia that the usage note idea is theoretically hella good. Globalization reaches the top if we factor in everything from all over the world---yet remaining aware of the home of each item we add to our cultural baggage, rather than balling it all up into a haphazard hodgepodge. That being said, it's undoubtedly gonna be a REAL toughie! (The legend could use some fixing up too.) In the "meaning" column we can possibly indicate the _nation of origin_ (when clearly verifiable) of postcolonial idioms that are now used _everywhere_ (e.g. fall off the wagon orig. USA). JackLumber, 21:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I revamped the legend a little. I changed "NorAme" to "NAmer" which is closer to the abbreviation I actually see in dictionaries; I moved "Ireland" out of the UK (most of it did so a while back) and added "Sc" for Scotland; and sorted the list alphabetically (leaving "Global" at the top, natch). Although I am pretty much of the opinion that this article should be sent to Wiktionary.SigPig 22:08, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * All things considered, yes, it should. But in the meantime we can spruce it up a tad before shipping it off, Wiktionary is such a mess at the present time. JackLumber, 22:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Thirded. I'm with JackLumber on this, 'though - the article needs a severe cleanup before anything else. Some of the meanings listed seem odd to me - but may possibly reflect a difference in American and British usage of the same phrases - along the lines of 'being pissed' means entirely different things either side of the Atlantic. By the way, I think someone forgot to re-insert 'take the fifth' - or should it be 'plead the fifth' anyway? WLD 22:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Sold down the river
Can anyone explain what 'sold down the river' is used for. I find references to Uncle Tom's Cabin where Uncle Tom is sold and taken down the Mississippi River by the slave trader to a slave market - but that doesn't really explain what people mean when they complain that they have been sold down the river in modern usage, slavery having been abolished in most places these days.WLD 09:04, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe was the first to use this idiom, later used by Mark Twain and others with the same meaning, associated with the years preceding the Civil War. The slaves who were sent down the Mississippi River, usually sold to a plantation on the Lower Mississippi, would basically have a tough time. Hence the generalization, from "slavery" to "hard situation," with often, if not usually, the connotation of a betrayal. Interestingly, "down the river" has been occasionally used to mean "finished" ("it's all down the river now"), and even mixed up with the unrelated up the river (=prison, from Sing Sing being located on the Hudson River north of NYC). JackLumber, 12:38, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks - it was the aspect of betrayal that had me confused. WLD 13:51, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Suggested merge of List of British idioms into this article
I've suggesting merging List of British idioms and List of idioms in the English language. I'm in favour - does anyone have any comments? WLD 14:09, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Support WLD 14:09, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose. English usage in Britain is very idiomatic and it helps to separate this out. I suggest separating out the other languages as well. To be honest I dodn't know about that other page before you mentioned it. Jooler 14:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Hello Jooler. I don't know if you've examined the List of idioms in the English language - it categories idioms according to country/countries of origin, thus preserving the separation. Personally, I think it is interesting and useful to see the differences in idiom on one page. Hope that helps. WLD 14:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Support Brbigam 23:59, 12 June 2006 (UTC) Having separate British and English pages is redundant. And English usage in the US is quite idiomatic as well.  Idioms that are unique to certain smaller areas probably don't need to be here - if anywhere, they should be on pages for regional dialects, or something like that.


 * If we can successfully complete the regional classification, sure support, since the British page would become redundant, and this page would be easier to maintain (think of someone who obliviously adds a non-specifically-British idiom to the British page.) That is, with the current layout, the merger is inevitable. And don't forget that many British idioms have American counterparts that only differ slightly (e.g. throw a monkey wrench / a spanner---even if the "spanner" version is just an Americanism in disguise...), so they all would be at home here. That being said, if this page gets transwikied we will probably need to bring back the British list. JackLumber, 12:11, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Definately support the merger but this page should really be split into 2-3 sections as it is far too long -Peripitus (Talk) 12:32, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the length may possibly be addressed by using the same technique as on the List of Latin phrases, where there are in fact three sub-pages that are merged into the whole. WLD 14:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Support English idioms are not all that easy to categorize by locality. Fishhead64 19:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Strongly oppose Federico Pistono  ✆   ✍  03:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC) The List of idioms in the English language is already too long by itself. We need to categorise more, and it would not make sense to merge the two. Instead, we should take out the Idioms that do not belong to the page they curretly are right now. As wikipedians calls it, a clean up, nothing more. I noticed that the list includes a caterisation by region of the World. Why not have a general page, maybe split in two, and the a dedicated page for those idioms who specifically belong to a certain reagion (if the number is consistent). That would be fair and square.
 * I don't understand the process you are describing. What would be on the general page, what would cause it to split into two, and how would you deal with idioms that are used in more than one region?  WLD 08:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

5 in favour, 2 not in favour - no consensus. I'll remove the notice. WLD 15:20, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Revisiting the locality key
This is misleading. There are numerous idioms here that I have heard in various places throughout my own country (Canada) that are listed as "UK" or "USA." There's always going to be seepage across borders, and trying to pin idioms down to various nations is an extremely difficult endeavour. In addition, there are many Englich-speaking countries with their own peculiar idioms. I suggest deleting this column entirely - I can't think of any way to make it less misleading than to change the title to "Found mostly in" or somesuch. Fishhead64 19:43, 14 June 2006 (UTC) I did As and Bs but have to run off. This will take a while. Fishhead64 19:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Somthing needs to be done. Almost all the UK+USA examples are also found in Canada to a significant extent.WilyD 15:37, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I guess it's pretty safe to assume that in most cases UK & USA → Global. JackLumber.  21:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * If used in Canada, as opposed to simply being understood, then simply add CAN to the "Where used" column. Many examples originate from, and are almost exclusively used in English from the USA, but understood (and not used) almost everywhere else because their use is exported via television and film. Very few people in the UK would use the phrase "open up a can of whoop-ass", but a large proportion would understand the intent on the phrase (or at least think they do). WLD 09:05, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

looks like a ___
I removed this since it is understandable as it is and therefore is not an idiom.


 * If it __________(present tense verb) like a (subject), and __________(different present tense verb) like a __________(same subject), then it must be a __________ (same subject)
 * USA
 * Said to denote that if the actions or characteristics of a subject indicate that it is a certain thing, then more than likely it is that thing. For example: If it looks like a dog, and sounds like a dog, it must be a dog.
 * - Qaz

Use ISO 3166?
Should we use the ISO 3166 three-letter country codes in the Legend? Or possibly the two-letter codes. I would also suggest the countries where an idiom is used be listed in alphabetical order - e.g. CAN, GBR, USA ; or CA, GB or UK, US WLD 09:17, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for regional indicators
As you all know, many idioms come in slightly different regional forms (e.g. USA: throw a [monkey] wrench, UK: throw a spanner; some are listed at American and British English differences). To really capitalize on the regionalization thing, we can provide separate entries for each variant, picking one (possibly the first in alphabetical order, not to discriminate) to which the others should be cross-referenced. JackLumber. 14:02, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm in favour/favor. WLD 14:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

To Shoot at the Moon
Hello everyone, I'm not a native english speaker, so I need someone else's opinion about the inclusion in the list of "Shooting at the moon". Is it an idiom? Bye. 130.251.4.11 11:26, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Use of the Category "Global"
Is it really appropriae to use th word global to classify a lot of these phrases? I'm Chinese and I'm pretty sure that there's no phrase in any Asian that corresponds to "Up a/shit creek without a paddle." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.229.131.137 (talk • contribs)
 * The page is titled "List of idioms in the English language", so "global" means "everywhere English is spoken."TomTheHand 19:20, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Matching categories in definitions
I would suggest revising some definitions on this list so that they match the grammatical category of the item being defined. For example, "bottom line" is defined as though it were a verb ("to reach a conclusion..."). Yes, English does allow nominal phrases in verbal uses, but "bottom line" is primarily a noun, not a verb. How about "a final conclusion reached" or some such. --62.40.80.246 20:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Removals
To be an idiom the meaning must NOT be transparent from the words used in the actual phrase. I have removed these (below) since I posit they are completely understandable on their own. I have tried to leave ones that were questionable so there are probably many more that can be removed. Also, I only got from A to D. If someone feels I have been too inclusive in my removals, either be bold and put it back or bring it up for discussion here on the talk page please.


 * Absence makes the heart grow fonder
 * Global
 * Love grows stronger when the loved one is absent


 * Ahead of the pack
 * USA, CAN, AUS
 * Making more progress than rivals or contenders


 * AWOL
 * Global
 * Absent Without Leave or Absent Without Official Leave - when someone has gone missing without telling anyone or asking for permission


 * Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
 * Global
 * Different people find different things beautiful


 * Beauty is only skin deep
 * Global
 * Appearances can be deceptive; a pleasant exterior may hide a bad interior


 * Behind closed doors
 * Global
 * Away from the public eye


 * Beyond a shadow/shout of (a) doubt
 * Global
 * Absolutely certain, indubitable


 * Birds of a feather flock together
 * Global
 * People with similar interests tend to befriend each other


 * Bite off more than one can chew
 * Global
 * To agree to more than one can handle


 * Bitter pill to swallow
 * Global
 * Something that is difficult to accept


 * Blood, sweat, and tears
 * Global
 * The effort and sacrifice put forth to achieve an elusive goal or overcome a difficult situation. See also Blood, toil, tears, and sweat


 * Blessing in disguise
 * Global
 * A misfortune which nevertheless leads to a positive effect


 * Came for the X, stayed for the Y
 * USA
 * Being present for a specific cause and receiving a greater benefit


 * Can't see your nose in front of your face
 * Global
 * Oblivious to something in plain view


 * Clear as mud
 * Global
 * Anything but clear; confusing


 * Close the barn door after the horse gets out
 * USA
 * Refers to not taking action until after a problem has already occurred, usually when it's too late and should have been done sooner. "Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted" is the common British variant


 * Close to one's heart
 * Global
 * Something or someone about whom a person cares very deeply


 * Come up (smelling like/of) roses
 * Global
 * Turn out extremely well; emerge untarnished from a difficult situation, have no stain on one's character


 * Come what may
 * Global
 * Said by someone committed to a course of action regardless of what happens


 * Come within an ace of (doing) something
 * To almost achieve something
 * To almost achieve something


 * Comfort zone
 * USA
 * The temperature range in which the body feels neither too hot nor too cold; also, a place where people feel socially or mentally comfortable and untroubled.


 * Constitution of an ox
 * UK
 * Someone who is less affected than most people by alcohol, tiredness or illness.


 * Cry one's eyes out
 * Global
 * Cry uncontrollably


 * Culture shock
 * A state of confusion and anxiety experienced by someone upon encountering an alien environment. The term was first used by social scientists to describe, for example, the experience of a person moving from a rural area to a big city


 * Damned if you do, damned if you don't
 * Global
 * A situation where one's actions can have no beneficial consequence; an unpleasant outcome will occur no matter what


 * Do someone's dirty work
 * Global
 * To carry out tasks for other persons that they do not wish to do themselves


 * Doesn't know (one's) ass from a hole in the ground
 * USA
 * Very stupid or uninformed.


 * Doesn't know his/her arse from his/her elbow
 * UK
 * British variant of above.


 * Don't count your chickens before they hatch
 * Global
 * Nothing is certain until the final conclusion


 * Dwell on the past
 * Global
 * Giving energy and thought to the past at the expense of the present or future

Qaz 17:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the above treatment was too radical. Idioms don't have to be completely opaque to be called idioms. An idiom doesn't have to be like "kick the bucket" to be a real idiom. The current approach is that idioms are not a homogeneous bunch (of idiosyncratic forms), but also include those that are compositional (where the composing units have conventional but not entirely arbitrary referents). In fact, Nunberg, Wasow and Sag (authors of the most influential recent article on the subject) claim that MOST existing idioms are to some degree compositional and few are completely non-transparent.

The following items, for example, are perfect idioms and should not be expunged from the list.


 * Bite off more than one can chew
 * Global
 * To agree to more than one can handle


 * Bitter pill to swallow
 * Global
 * Something that is difficult to accept

What makes the pill example an idiom are the following considerations:

1. Figuration - an idiom is non-literal 2. Affect - an idiom conveys an emotionally-charged meaning 3. Informality - ideally, the register is informal 4. Proverbiality - idioms serve to describe recurrent situations

These are the key features of what constitues an idiom. Opaqueness is NOT a necessary condition, and the fact that some of the above examples are transparent (in the sense that the choice of elements is logical) does not invalidate the idiom classification.

--62.40.80.246 09:41, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * This is how the dictionary on my computer defines idiom: "a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words." Therefore, it would seem to me that being transparent in meaning would make something not an idiom. For example, if to "dwell on the past" is an idiom... what couldn't be called an idiom? Qaz 06:21, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed, I wouldn't call "dwell on the past" an idiom, because here EVERY single element of the expression has a literal "non-processed" meaning (one of the definitions of "dwell" is "to focus one's attention"). But some other examples you suggested striking from the list are fine idioms, - at least the ones I pointed out above.

I agree that caution should be exercised while including an expression on an idiom list, as obviously a lot of them simply won't qualify. The challenge is not to throw out the baby with the bathwater (hey, actually this is a pretty good idiom!). The definition you're quoting is okay, and can be used as a test for what is an idiom. But to decide whether the meaning is deducible, you should have a sufficiently uninformative context and get a person who knows the composing parts to guess that meaning. But even if that person is lucky, that still doesn't disqualify the expression, because as I said before, the current view in linguistics is that opaqueness is not a necessary condition for idiomaticity. Most idioms make logical metaphoric sense.


 * Qaz, you screwed up. Birds of a feather, don't count the chicken, and bite off more than one can chew are idioms, period.  Think of learners of English, who want, and need, to know these phrases.  But AWOL, culture shock, and comfort zone are definitely not idioms.   JackLumber.  21:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, Jack: The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms would disagree on your assessment ofculture shock. --SigPig 03:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)-


 * Actually, I was thinking of people who did not have English as a first language. This is what I did. I asked myself, would knowing the meaning of the words in the phrase be likely to lead someone to the meaning of the whole phrase, even if they had not seen the meaning before because they did not have English as a first language. Using this standard, biting off more than you can chew is easily understood to mean having tackled something beyond your ability (Though it is slightly artistic use of language, granted - I hesitated on that one for that reason) Don't count your chickens before they hatch, same thing... slightly poetic but not at all unable to be decoded if you know the meanings of the words themselves. It is not like a true idiom such as, say, three sheets to the wind, or raining cats and dogs. With those, knowing the meanings of the words would either mislead you or provide no help at all to what the meaning of the phrase is. It was the case with all the ones I removed that you can use the meanings of the words themselves (the ones in the phrase in question) to understand the meaning of that phrase. I may have been to harsh on some but I like the discussion this has sparked. Qaz 02:26, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Count one's chickens before they hatch,bite off more than one can chew, andbirds of a feather are all listed as idioms by The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. It seems to me that inclusion of an idiom in this article depends on any given user's personal opinion as to what constitutes an idiom: transparency, poetry (!), etc. Why is that no one is checking a dictionary, especially a dictionary of idioms? Then you could at least cite the idiom in question. There are only 19 cites in the entire article, and I think the majority of them are mine (and given that my laziness factor is somewhere between "cut dog" and "tenured prof", that's somewhat sad). --SigPig 03:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, in a broader sense culture shock is an idiom, and so are sticker shock and many other non-self-explanatory compounds (pipe dream, n time loser, ambulance chaser, curb appeal, etc.), and even such phrases as off of. A possible criterion could be: a compound shall be excluded from our list if it is featured as an independent entry in a regular dictionary.  Note that some such compounds in fact derive from "idioms"—early bird, torch singer, etc.   JackLumber.  19:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * If we then exclude those that have entries in the dictionary, are we then not left with unverifiable/original research? This article would be looking down the barrel of yet another AfD -- and pulling the trigger itself. --SigPig 20:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Waitaminnit, let me back up a sec: let me know if I have the wrong end of the stick here :). When you say "independent entry" what exactly do you mean? Are you referring to an entry like one's chickens before they hatch, or instead like for crying out loud, which is only a subentry under "cry"? --SigPig 20:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I mean a word, or lexeme, that is dealt with like every other word in a generic dictionary like Merriam-Webster or New Oxford, with no usage restrictions—long story short, something like this. In this example, culture shock is regarded as a regular noun, just like all-terrain vehicle, mobile home, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.  In this scenario, crying out loud (which is only a run-on in your example) and thechickens are most welcome.   JackLumber.  19:33, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Sleep With the Fishes . ..

 * . . . should definitely not have a page of its own but should be merged with the list of idioms. Sincerely,GeorgeLouis 03:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

curtain falls
Should "curtain falls" be on this list? Here's its usage in a sentence: "The curtain falls on the Chinese Wikimedia Conference 2006 in Hong Kong." If it doesn't belong here, could someone please explain what it means to me? Thanks. --Jecowa17:32, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Working examples for the listed idioms?
This is a useful list. But I find it necessary to add working examples of the listed idioms (like the wayhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_redundant_expressions does), especially since the list is very long and there are a number of idioms in the list one has not seen anywhere else. Orz 21:39, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Cliches but not Idioms
I notice there is some cliches (overused phrases) which are not strictly idioms (phrases with no discernable meaning from constiutent words) eg. 'to bring a knife to a gunfight' sounds cool but anyone who understands component words should get the meaning of that one.

I am going for a sweep to remove these later on. OBjections? novacatz 16:38, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I object. i wasn't able to figure out what it means correctly. I thought it had something to do with being dishonorable. It is an idiom because knowing the meaning of each of its words didn't lead me to the understanding that it means to be prepared.Jecowa 02:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC) . The line dividing cliches and idioms is very thin!--Darrendeng 07:19, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Walk the What?
Since when is the expression to "walk the talk" rather than to "walk the walk"?

The point of the original, full expression was -- and still is -- to juxtapose deeds and performance with idle boast, as in "You talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?", or "Don't talk the talk if you can't walk the walk", or whatever. In whatever variant, it means the same thing as "Talk is cheap", and conveys a challenge roughly similar to that of "Put up or shut up", or "How about putting your money where your mouth is?" (The latter expression already has an entry on the idiom page, while the former two expressions do not. Cf. entries for "All bark and no bite", "All piss and wind", and "All mouth/talk and no trousers".)

This newer formulation seems to be an attempt to compress the entire original expression and all its variants into a three-word synopsis. While its meaning can be figured out -- that is, by anyone familiar with the actual expression -- it simply is not the actual, original expression, or any part of it. In other words, "walk the talk" is not the idiom in question, but rather a garbling of that idiom.

If I am mistaken and "walk the talk" is to be retained, then, at a minimum, some brief explanation should be added of how the expression first arose, and how it was transformed -- if indeed it ever was -- from "walk the walk" into "walk the talk".

Beyond that, unless "walk the walk" truly isn't an idiom in its own right any longer at all, and has truly been replacedrather than merely joined or supplemented by "walk the talk", then it too should be added to the list. And if "walk the talk" is the confused conflation that it sounds like, then it should be removed from the list -- unless, of course, it too has become an idiom in its own right.

Unwashed
"Unwashed" redirects to this page, but is not on this page... I'm trying to work this out. Any ideas? Mdbrownmsw 16:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * For now, I've moved the redirect for "Great Unwashed", "The Great Unwashed" and "Unwashed" to Edward_Bulwer-Lytton%2C_1st_Baron_Lytton
 * Mdbrownmsw 16:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Eye on the ball?
Has anyone else heard the phrase "keeping ones eye on the ball"? Jvanvelden 12:20, 21 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yep, I suspect it may have originated with baseball, though I suppose other sports might have generated it too. Anyway, I think it roughly equates to "concentrate on what you're doing". &mdash;Mulad (talk) 15:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It's a very common U.S. phrase - I'm almost certain it originated with baseball Elustran 06:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Would that we could
I've seen the phrase "would that we could" pop up recently, and I'm completely unfamiliar with it. It seems to have been around for quite a while, though, as a Google search reveals a quote from Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914). Is it an idiom? What does it mean? &mdash;Mulad (talk) 15:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Article Split
I propose dividing this up into its respective letters on their own pages. This would eliminate an unnecessarily long page while still preserving the breadth of information contained on it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Illuminatiscott (talk • contribs)


 * I agree, but it looks like you've already done this. I do have one concern though -- you've split these into, for example:List of idioms in the English Language (A).  However, shouldn't "language" be lowercased?  It wouldn't take too long to fix all 26 of these if they need to be, but I just wanted to bring it up early on. --Czj 01:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and fixed these, since "language" was capitalized for no apparent reason, and the title of the original article has it lowercased. There were actually 24 to fix -- not 26 -- since there are no idioms listed that begin in "Q" or "V"--Czj 01:28, 4 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you for doing that; it could have caused a lot of confusion. Man, that was tiring. It took me about an hour of doing nothing but copy/pasting. But it needed to be done.
 * I've created a transcluded version incorporating all the individual letter pages for those who prefer a single document, which is more convenient for searching. WLD 09:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. List of Latin phrases does this same thing, so I was thinking about that also, but I wasn't sure on how to make it seek out the content from the individual articles. --Czj 17:11, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * No problem. I picked it up from List of Latin phrases as well. I think Illuminatiscott has twigged as well. WLD 23:37, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Missing Phrase
Under 'A':  (blank)|Global| Possessing lots of weapons

What is the phrase belonging there? IstvanWolf 14:04, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * "Armed to the Teeth" is was the missing phrase. Looks like it's been fixed already. Jecowa 18:24, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't cry over spilled milk
The interpretation of this idiomatic expression is reported as "Don't make a big deal over little things"; wouldn't "It's useless to regret something bad that's happened (usually because of the listener's fault)" be a lot more accurate? --MavE16:08, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The expression is only dealing with little bad things, not all bad things. I don't think it would be appropriate to say this idiom to someone mourning the loss of her husband. Also, the idiom doesn't give a reason not to cry over the spilled milk (because it's useless). I like the current interpretation because it only interprets the two symbols of the idiom - "cry" and "spilled milk." This makes it easier to understand why the idiom means what it means. Maybe that last part of the current interpretation is specific enough, though. I'm not sure if this phrase can't be applied to all "little things." Maybe it would be more specific to interpret it as "small, unpleasant things." "Spilled milk" can't very well apply to pleasant things. Also, in my opinion, "make a big deal" is a better interpretation than "regret." Regret can be done silently, but crying and making a big deal are usually more loud. Jecowa 18:11, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Global?
What is referred to as global - aren't some of these just used in Western nations? I'm not sure all these items are used in the Philippines, India, many African countries - all places English is spoken.


 * (Previous comment made by 24.68.180.163)


 * Yes, you have a good point, and it is one that has bothered me for some time. I'm not sure what the solution is, though.  Possibly removing all instances of "Global", and explicitly listing all the nations where it is possible to properly cite the use of the idiom in question, with a proper reference for each country listed? WLD 13:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Would it be acceptable to change the definition in the key/legend so that the label "Global" will apply only to the countries of Australia, Canada, United States, Ireland, United Kingdom, and New Zealand? Maybe the label "Global" could also be changed to something more acurate, such as "nearly global" and abriviated as NGlobal if it is considered too long to be written out. Also, why is Mexico listed here? Most Mexicans don't speak English, at least not the parts of Mexico I've been to.Jecowa 18:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC)