Definition: A creative group technique to stimulate ideas

Example: Doyle and his two co-workers spent most of the day brainstorming a name for the client’s new biscuits. The best they could come up with was “Yummies’. They did manage to eat all the samples though.

Origin:

Iddy’s not sure if  brainstorming is a true idiom, or simply a term, but it confused the heck out of him, so here we go…

It was coined by advertising executive Alex F. Osborn in the 1950s. It was a technique he pioneered when he realised individuals were not coming up with many ideas within his agency. Throwing them together in a room, probably with lots of coffee, yielded far more creative ideas.

He had four components to create the perfect brainstorming session:

1. QUANTITY. The more ideas, the better
2. NO CRITICS. There is no such thing as a bad idea at the session.
3. BE WILD. Encourage crazy thinking
4. COMBINE TO IMPROVE. Throw ideas together to see if they can complement each other.

Now sit back and watch the creative lightning rain down from the heavens!

Definition: Stay out of trouble!

Example: Robby tried his best to keep his nose clean as he didn’t want to go back to prison. But the wedding cake in the bakery window was begging to be stolen.

Origin:

There are a lot of claims as to the origin of this idiom…

1)  It is a 1970s reference to cocaine usage, but the term predates this assertion by a century.

2) It is a childhood warning about personal hygiene and the spreading of germs through runny noses. There seems to be little supporting evidence for this.

3) It is a warning over the abuse of alcohol, that the foam from an upturned glass of beer ‘dirties’ the nose. Still not sold.

What we do know is that there was an earlier UK English phrase ‘keep your hands clean‘ which upon crossing the Atlantic to America, somehow morphed into keep your nose clean. It then returned to the UK and replaced the original phrase. Its meaning changed as well during its ocean crossing. The first version had more of a personal hygiene meaning, but in the States it took on more of a avoiding corruption twist. Most recently however, it seems to relate exclusively to the world of crime. Somebody keeping their nose clean is staying out of criminal activity.

Iddy’s had to borrow somebody else’s nose in order to illustrate the idiom. He doesn’t have one of his own.

Definition: To be kind or generous

Example: Despite the fact that Bella frowns her way through life, she actually has a heart of gold.

Origin:

Having a heart of gold has been with us for quite some time. It appears in William Shakespeare’s play Henry V, written about 1599. The simple explanation is that gold was, and still is, thought of as both pure and precious. These are characteristics you can apply to somebody’s personality, and thus, their heart.

Iddy doesn’t have a gold one himself. I don’t know who he stole that one from. His own is probably made of the blackest carbon. Don’t let that smile fool you!

Definition: To stay calm, composed, and collected

Example: Despite the intense pressure, Stan stayed cool as a cucumber and defeated his five-year-old nephew in the game of tiddlywinks.

Origin:

This is a strange one. How somebody’s bearing under pressure should be compared to a vegetable is not just unclear, it’s totally nonsensical on every level. Yes, cucumbers are cool to the touch, and can be as much as twenty degrees cooler inside than the outside air, but the cool in the phrase has nothing to do with temperature. And it’s older than you might think. Its first appearance in print is in a 1732 poem by John Gay.

Iddy, as pictured, has used the 1970’s derived definition of cool, that of somebody socially admired. Just like the Fonz was on Happy Days. Funny. Looking at him, you’d never have thought Iddy to be in awe of custom motorcycles….

Hey all.

Iddy’s back after a break, starting with this one for Olivia and her Middle School class who are studying animal based idioms… what better place to start than Crocodile Tears?

Definition: A fake or insincere demonstration of sorrow

Example: Belinda shed crocodile tears at Bernie’s funeral. After all, she’d been the one who had shot him.

Origin:

Can crocodiles cry?

The idiom comes from an ancient belief that crocodiles cried when devouring their prey. A very strange concept; remorseful reptiles! The phrase reached the English language at the beginning of the 15th century, but in the form of crocodiles ‘weeping’. It was another hundred years before our current phrasing began to appear.

So back to our question. Do they cry? Apparently they do, but not from emotion. Certainly not from remorse. Iddy was surprised that crocodiles have tear ducts at all. Seems a bit redundant for a creature that lives in the water. But it is for that very reason that they do have tears. When they do venture from those waters, their eyes tend to dry out, and so the need for tears.

Having established that they do indeed shed tears, a neurologist decided to go one step further in 2006. He observed caimans while they fed at a refuge in Florida. Closely related to their larger counterparts, several of them did ‘cry’ while feeding, though the actual reason is still debated. However, not a single scientist came forward and claimed it was remorse.

There is a rare medical condition, Bogorad’s syndrome, which causes people to shed tears while they eat. Unsurprisingly, it is sometimes referred to as ‘Crocodile Tears Syndrome’.