Idioms and Idiomatic Expressions

So I planned to post this yesterday - but the best laid plans and all... sigh.

Anyway, so here it is:

Red-letter day
Meaning
In earlier times a church festival or saint's day; more recently, any special day.

Origin
This comes from the practise of marking the dates of church festivals on calendars in red.

The first explicit reference to the term in print that we have comes from America. This is a simple use of the term "Red letter day" in the diary of Sarah Knight - The journals of Madam Knight, and Rev. Mr. Buckingham ... written in 1704 & 1710, which was published in American Speech in 1940.

The practice is much earlier than that though. William Caxton, referred to it in The boke of Eneydos, translated and printed in 1490:

"We wryte yet in oure kalenders the hyghe festes wyth rede lettres of coloure of purpre."

The term came into wider use in 1549 when the first Book of Common Prayer included a calendar with holy days marked in red ink. For example, Annunciation (Lady Day), 25th March, was designated in the book as a red-letter day.

The term is sometimes written without the hyphen - 'red letter day'.


So how to sign it? DAY SPECIAL or DAY GREAT perhaps? In some contexts perhaps even DAY TREASURE. (As usual, these glosses can all be found at aslpro

resource: The Phrase Finder

Idioms and Idiomatic expressions.

Here are a couple of sports idioms, from The Idiom Connection.

carry the ball

- be in charge (from carry the ball in American football)

The director decided to let his assistant carry the ball on the assignment for the new sale's contract.

drop the ball

- make an error or mistake, handle things badly

The government dropped the ball on their decision to expand the airport runway without consulting the local residents.

As you can see, in meaning these are opposites that have honestly nothing to do with each other. I expect in both cases to translate by meaning only: CONTROL in the first case and FAIL or MISTAKE in the second (all signs available at aslpro.com)

This brings me to consider the current phrase "EPIC FAIL". At the moment, it is still merely an emphasized FAIL - any thoughts on where the teenagers may choose a different sign?

Idioms and Idiomatic Expressions

all ears

-to be eager to hear something, to be very attentive

My sister was all ears last night when I talked about starting a home business.

all eyes

- to be watching very closely, to be wide-eyed with surprise

My friend is all eyes when he goes to a basketball game.


While it would be easy to translate these the same way, I think there is a small distinction worth noting. The first shows eagerness while the other shows surprise. Therefore, it may be possible to show ATTENTION with facial grammar marking the difference.

However, I would probably save the ATTENTION sign, with eager body and face, perhaps even paired with the sign EAGER for "all ears." (both signs available at aslpro.com under these glosses.)

I would probably use an idiomatic version of SURPRISE/AMAZEMENT. I cannot currently find a free example on the web, let me know if you do. It is made with the mouth open - adding to the feeling of surprise, with both hands as fists at the eyes, then opening wide (I wiggle each finger as the open wide and close again).

If you really cannot imagine what I am describing, email me and I will do my best to get a vid up somewhere.

Signing off (I know, bad pun... sorry)
resource

Idioms and Idiomatic Expressions

Idiom: 1. A speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements, as in keep tabs on. (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.)

Idiom: 1. a group of words which, when used together, have a different meaning from the one suggested by the individual words, eg it was raining cats and dogs
2. linguistic usage that is grammatical and natural to native speakers (Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006)

Looking at these definitions, it is clear to me why I resist making the often-requested video of English idioms in ASL. The only way to approach one is meaning-for-meaning. There are a few English idioms that have ASL idiomatic equivalences (TRAIN-GONE is a decent substitute for you missed the boat). Unfortunately, most of the time, the color is lost and only the menaing can be saved.

This intermittant series will explore English idioms and see if by determining meaning we can come up with options for how to sign them. I will use glosses as set forth in American Sign Language by Cokely and Baker-Schenk (known affectionately as "the Green Books").

If it turns out during this exploration I change my mind and video some options, watch this blog for youtube annoucements.

That's all for now! Happy SPring Break!