Personal Idioms

“Raining cats and dogs,” “Green with envy,” and “Easy as pie”: What these odd expressions share in common is the classification as cultural idioms. They are colloquial expressions that use the English language in creative ways to capture an attitude, image, or feeling. A person who came to America from another country would have to study the sky during a rainstorm for quite awhile to find cats or dogs. In much the same way, friends, lovers, families, and close-knit social networks have idioms that are unique to their interactions. Outsiders would not understand that terms such as Boo might refer ...