Jargons and idioms, fixed expres

JARGONS AND IDIOMS, FIXED EXPRES

So far, in this lesson we’ve been examining collocation between words, how words have a tendency to be used with other words in a given language. Generally, this usage is fairly flexible in form. For the collocation to “pay a bill” we can create such phrases as “will pay the bill”, “the bill has been paid”, “the payment of the bill”, “bill pay”, etc. and still maintain the meaning. At this point we will turn our attention to idioms and fixed expressions, both of which are generally characterized by rigidity in patterning. In other words, the parts of speech cannot be changed (from verb to noun for example) and the word order must remain the same.

An idiom is an expression with at least two words which cannot be understood literally, and for which the meaning is based on the whole rather than on the individual words in it. Some examples of idioms in Spanish and English are dar por sentado which means to take for granted and estar al tanto which means to be up to date. Spanish and English both have idioms to express many of the same messages, though this is not always the case. Idiomatic expressions are strongly cultural and have different meanings derived from the cultures they come from. In translation, it is essential to identify idioms in the source language and to transfer the meaning into the target language, either by using an equivalent idiom or by paraphrasing the meaning.