Saturday, April 7, 2018

G is for Goody, goody, gumdrops

The other day I was saying, "Goody, goody, gumdrops," and my friend, who is a non-native speaker of English, asked what I meant. It was easy to explain that was a phrase meaning delight that originated with the happy prospect of getting candy. But it was a bit harder to explain that it is also used sarcastically which is how I usually use it. That got me thinking about other idioms we use everyday and never think twice about.

So in the theme of sayings starting with G, I here are a few more:

Go against the grain means go against natural tendencies. It refers to going against the grain when working with wood which is hard work. Shakespeare popularized this phrase.

Go fly a kite go away, stop bothering me. Kite flying is an activity that could keep some busy and away from you.

Go Bananas means go crazy.  This came from the association of bananas with monkeys and monkeys are thought to have silly, uncontrolled behavior.

Gone to pot means that something is ruined. This came from the 1500's and refers to animals that couldn't do work, so they were more likely to end up in the cooking pot.

Goody-Two-Shoes means person who is trying to be perfect.  This saying comes from a nursery tale in the mid 1700's about a girl who only had one shoe and who was then given another one. She showed off her shoes saying, "Two shoes."

Grasping at straws means to try something with little hope of it succeeding. This saying was popular by the 1600s and referred to someone drowning who only had had reeds along the banks to grasp onto.

Green with envy means extremely jealous. Shakespeare popularized green with the envy when he referred to it as the green sickness in Antony and Cleopatra.

Source: Scholastic Dictionary of Idioms, 1996, Scholastic, Inc.






11 comments:

  1. A great post! I have always been fascinated with words and sayings and enjoyed your selection - an idea for a whole A-Z Challenge on the topic?

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    1. Not a topic for the whole A-Z challenge, but that's a good idea. I don't have a theme, just scrambling along with whatever I can manage. Some day, I will take the time to plan ahead.

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  2. I love idioms! My step mother is a non-native speaker, and even after living in this country since the '70s, she still occasionally gets tripped up. One time we were talking and an idiom came up... can't remember which one or how it was used. But at some point in the conversation I thought I'd get funny and threw in "are you calling me an idiom?!?" Apparently a pun on top of the idiom was too much. I gave up trying to explain. :)

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    1. I guess you were only amusing yourself with your phrase. (Although, I quite enjoyed it.) It's funny that sometimes I have to step back to realize I have even used an idiom since it's so ingrained in my language.

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  3. Oh, I'm sorry I've missed some good posts of yours! Just got back from visiting in-laws over spring break. Anyway, love this post! I enjoy learning where idioms originated, but then again, I'm sorta geeky that way.

    I also enjoyed your story about DNA. Sounds like a shocker.

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    1. I hope you had a nice visit during spring break. The DNA thing was quite a shocker.

      I work with two different people that have English as a second language. They sometimes ask what we mean by a saying that makes me stop and think. But I also enjoy it when they tell me about a phrase they have in their language that we don't have in English.

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  4. Between Shakespeare and the King James Bible, English idioms are set in stone! (So says this non-native speaker of English). :)

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    1. I hadn't realized that Shakespeare had popularized so many of them until I started reading this book.

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  5. Brilliant post! I use some of these G phrases, but especially when I am trapping a big situation that turns sour, I will say, the situation is Going south on me.

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    1. which is a nicer way of saying its Going to hell.

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    2. I'm familiar with the "Going South" phrase, but didn't know where it came from. Supposedly, it refers to the compass directions on a map where north is up and south is down. Wonder why we don't have the corollary phrase of going north?

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What do you think?