Idioms + Multicultural Context = Humor :)

Whenever I return to the Southeast part of the US my accent thickens. Indian friends came to visit with us last summer and they laughed at how our language changed almost as soon as we stepped off the plane.

Along with the accent comes a fresh dose of American idioms. They are really easy to adopt and hard to rid from your thoughts and speech (as well as writing for that matter). Merriam-Webster says this:

Pronunciation: 'i-dE-&m
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French & Late Latin; Middle French idiome, from Late Latin idioma individual peculiarity of language, from Greek idiOmat-, idiOma, from idiousthai to appropriate, from idios

2 : an expression in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself either grammatically (as no, it wasn't me) or in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements.

In a multicultural context they create misunderstandings that are humorous. Living in Dubai has trained me to try and expunge as many of these from my speech so I can communicate as clearly as possible with people of other cultures. But it's really hard to do and especially upon just returning. Here's a brief conversation I had with a fellow church member who had just returned from a Christian program in England.

Briggs: "We had a special speaker come in and address the group... I think his name was Colin Chapman..."

Me: "Wow... he's a real 'heavy-weight'"

Briggs: Actually he was a short and slim man.

I had a good laugh about this one on the way home this past Friday. If you want to read a funny article about idioms, or cliches, check out this short article in a recent Newsweek. It's short and very funny... especially the last paragraph.