On the Erosion of Idiom

The other day I was buying eye cream. The clerk was explaining to me that despite its high price, the little jar was extremely economical because, “You only need the very teeny, tiniest—you only need a pin drop.”

We know exactly what she meant. But a “pin drop” is not a measure of the size of a drop. It comes from a different idiom, one describing the quality of silence: “It was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop.”

I heard a friend telling a story. She was describing another woman, who was apparently very short and very busty. The words she used were, “She was a little powder-puff pigeon of a woman.” Maybe the woman was fluffy and round, like a powder puff. Maybe there is a variety of pigeon known as a “powder-puff pigeon,” but I don’t think so. I think she was mixing “powder puff” with “pouter pigeon.”

I have an exercise DVD in which the enthusiastic instructor keeps telling the viewer to “Straighten those arms and box those ears!” What she means is to extend one’s arms straight up, parallel with one’s ears. Like the sides of a box, I guess she thinks.

But to box someone’s ears is to slap the flat of one’s hand hard against the ear. This is very painful. It’s also dangerous, as forcing air explosively into the ear can burst the eardrum. It would be hard to do it to yourself, and why would you want to?

Why in the world am I making a fuss about this?

The first two instances are, I think, harmless and amusing slips of the tongue, or of the mind. The third, however, is more disturbing. A lot of people who watch this DVD are going to think that “box one’s ears” means “stick one’s arms up in the air parallel to one’s ears.”

I think the exercise guru needed a quick, snappy way to say, “Raise those arms straight up parallel to those ears!” I suspect that she thinks “Box those ears!” actually means this. But it doesn’t. And if everyone who hears her begins to think that it does, either we will have lost the original meaning of the idiom, or we will have two mutually exclusive meanings.

Where’s the harm in that, you may ask.

I think there is harm. I think semantics matter. I think if you’re going to use a word in a new way, to mean something it doesn’t (yet) mean, you are required to tell your readers (or viewers) what you are using the word to mean, and, if possible, why. And I think you need a good reason. I don’t think people should arbitrarily change the meanings of words, either out of ignorance or to suit themselves and their current purposes.

I mean, first of all, shades of 1984. “War is Peace” and all that.

But also, I really do believe that in order for people to communicate effectively, they need to understand each other.¹ They need to use words to mean the same thing. It’s hard enough, heaven knows, to have a discussion between opposing viewpoints even when they do.

So here I am, crying, as usual, in the wilderness, and if I come across more examples of this kind, I will certainly add them to this essay. And if you come across one, please share it.

¹ See the essay On the Importance of Readability.