[lit-ideas] Re: Get You
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 09:54:16 +0100
>I was oddly cheered by having got "get you" without explanation.>
This getting "without explanation" is surely a major part of the explanation of
why idiomatic expressions take hold. My ma uses many Ulster idioms such as
"They don't lick it up off the grass": these are expressions whose sense I was
raised on but which do not appear obvious to English people - but once they get
the sense, then the expression seems very apt and they find themselves adopting
it (the expression conveys the sense that "They learnt that from somewhere").
Here is a child of two using Ulster expressions - "bold" means naughty, for
example - which she clearly didn't lick up off the grass:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSyGRut7T0s
Much of the sense can be gathered - is shown - without verbal explanation being
necessary.
Dnl
On Sunday, 28 September 2014, 9:00, David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I was oddly cheered by having got "get you" without explanation.
The price you pay for exile abroad is rarely getting to talk with local
density. Last Saturday I was at a dinner table with Geordies and Londoners.
The fun was in not having to explain the implications; we all knew.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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