Idioms and Idiomatic Expressions

I've been discussing this topic with some colleagues recently. They wanted to know what I mean by "idiomatic expressions".

First off, an idiom is a phrase that means something differnt than the obvious. "You missed the boat" has nothing to do with rtravel, or boats. It has everything to do with impatience of one person to go back and fill in details another person missed.

Now let's talk about the ASL expression "TRAIN-GONE". I would also define this one as an idiom. The two signs clearly articulated are "TRAIN" and a sign sometimes glossed "ZOOM" (dominant handshape l to g as moving from non-dominant to dominant side along the back of two fingers). Yet the phrase means the same as :you missed the boat." It is not used to mean I've missed my connecting metro, it means I walked up in the middle of a conversation and that's just too bad for me.

So what do I mean by an idiomatic expression?

Let's use the commonly glossed ASL sign "COW-ON". It means "to take forever."

I went to renew my driver's license and the line went out the door - it took forever!"

True, it has nothing to do with COW, but the only real thing the expression has in common with COW is the start of the sign resembles the sign for COW from the same place near the forehead. So really, we tried to capture a concept in a non-native environment and instead claimed it was an idiom. If anything , it is a short form of the standard sign "FOREVER" which is a combination of ALWAYS and EVER.

So, anyway, that's my story and I am sticking to it.

(Signs available at the ASL Browser except the idiomatic "COW-ON" and idiom "TRAIN-GONE". I haven't found them on line yet.)