If you've ever shot the breeze, had a heart-to-heart or bent somebody's ear — in fact, if you've ever talked at all — odds are you've used an idiom. These sometimes bizarre phrases are a staple of ...

Explore the 25 startling origins of popular idioms! Uncover the dark, bizarre, and fascinating histories behind everyday phrases like 'bite the bullet' and ...

Why do we say "I'm not pulling your leg"? Or "he kicked the bucket"? I don't mean etymologically, I mean logically. Why do we use idioms? I became fascinated by that question when I discovered that ...

Learning languages is challenging. There are thousands of strange new words to know, along with how to pronounce them and use them correctly in a sentence. One of the trickier parts is figuring out ...

Hit the sack, hold your horses, once in a blue moon and when pigs fly. What do all these strange turns of phrase have in common? They are all idioms. An idiom is an expression that is commonly ...

Being a linguist — and someone who has tried to learn several languages (including English) in addition to my mother tongue (Flemish Dutch) — I have an annoying habit: instead of paying attention to ...