The Early Bird Spoils The SOUP!!

My dad...my hero...used to crack me up with his interpretations and use of "sayings". Being from India and mastering English was just one amazing goal he accomplished. The idioms used in the English language and idiomatic expressions that rely on a figurative meaning really hit home to him. Also, the colloquial terms and slang that cradle "English Speakers" use was one way he he tried to fit in as an Indian who became an American citizen. 

Unfortunately, he often either heard them wrong or interpreted them incorrectly. 

I can remember working on a middle school project with a few friends down in our basement ( for Floridians ...this is a room in the ground ...below the house where people gather and often store things or have a rec-room).

My dad walked down down and said " Well..Are you breaking wind on your project? " My friends looked confused. I explained to my dad that " Making a dent" in the project or " Making headway" on the project was the appropriate slang. "Breaking Wind" , I told him...was farting.

"Ridiculous...why would they name flatulence after a sturdy jacket?"  A "Wind breaker" is a clothing. 

"DAD!!! It's a similarity to a SOUND that a fart makes..Like the person "broke the wind"...AHHHGGGG...It's like when a person farts and someone says.. " Who cut the cheese?"

My dad said .."You are tired. Everybody knows there is no sound when cheese is cut. Have you and your friends been drinking?"

"Anyway...go to sleep and get to school before anyone else because "The early bird spoils the soup!".

For the rest of the 7th grade...my friends would ask me if I was "breaking wind" on my homework..

The tons of commonly used sayings in the English Language were what my dad heard all day long. .....TV,  in the OR,  at home,  socializing with friends...

He understood their figurative meanings but often forgot the words of the idiomatic expressions.

After a few martinis on the part of my brother Ram and my dad and I, my dad used to give advice..relying on his collection of wise principles and values. 

He always messed up the idiom but Ram and I always got the meaning.

" I always say that if you can kill a bird in the hand...it is worth killing two with a stone!"

I remember when I broke up with my boyfriend in high school and everybody was talking about me ...I just crumbled into bed crying. My dad sat at the end of the bed and said with all sincerity..." People in glass houses shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth!".

This meant the world to me.

But...I digress..

I love to ask my 9 and 10 year old to interpret these strange colloquial sayings. 

Kids at this age are very concrete and challenging them to think about the meaning of these age old idioms is an opportunity to expand their minds...while laughing hysterically at the answers they offer.

We play this game when we all go out to dinner. I ask Ruby.."What does it mean to put the cart before the horse?"

She thinks and says...Well if you put the cart before the horse ...the horse will jam up his head and neck and therefore be useless...so you should never do this if you love your horse.

We die laughing. Then Chloe or Liza explain the meaning and use it in a sentence.

Darby's turn. I ask her what "Bite off more than you can chew" means. She thinks and says ....thats easy..I do it all the time. If you have beef jerky and you take a big bite and can't swallow it you have to spit it outing front of everyone and then the lunch monitor asks you to leave the table and then you miss recess.

When the girls finish laughing and explain the real meaning...Darby looks at them like they are just making stuff up. " What does THAT have to do with spitting out beef jerky????"

Regardless of the outcome, at least they get to hear the idioms and hear them used in a sentence and the rest of us get to appreciate the concrete mind on its way to abstraction.

Remember....A rolling stone gets the worm!