SEEK AT LEAST A LAUGH A WEEK

Here’s a little “food for thought,” which is an idiom, or by now is probably a cliche–laughter is almost as good for you as a chocolate chip cookie. Well, I just made that up about the cookie, but then if you know me at all by now, you know that I often make stuff up just to try and get you to laugh. Sneaky, right?

I’m eating my cookie right now and drinking my tea while I look through a book that is dog-eared from my over-use of its idiom information. The book was published by Scholastic in 1996. You’ll see idioms, cliches, phrase, sayings, and expressions all over my book, “Ticked Off And Tickled About It.” That’s because they tickle me.

I recall one day when I told my daughter-in-law that I couldn’t do something or other because I had “other fish to fry.” Since she knows I don’t do much cooking, she said, “I didn’t know you cook fish.” She didn’t grow up with mother in Oklahoma where idioms flew fast and furious. When I got the idiom book, there was not one phrase in there that I hadn’t heard.

I started to tell you about a food event I attended not too long ago, but I’ve gotten sidetracked because I looked up phrases on eating and food and found “easy as pie,” “eat crow,” “eat humble pie,” “eat your hat,” “eat your heart out,” “eat your words,” “egg on your face.”

Under Food, I saw “feast or famine,” “feel your oats,” “finger in every pie,” “from soup to nuts,” “full of beans,” and of course, “food for thought.”

Now I must confess that every chapter heading in my “Ticked Off” book is an idiom. They are probably a cliche which is an idiom that has become very well known.

My feeling about the use of cliches is the same as my thought about why travel to some obscure city, in the middle of who knows where, when you can go to Paris, Rome or Venice. More people go to those three cities because they are the most fun places to visit so they are well known. (Sort of cliche traveling.)

About the food event I meant to mention–It was all about eating healthy foods and I agree that’s very important, but people eat hamburgers and hot dogs not only because they are cheap, but also they are a lot more fun to eat than lettuce and rutabaga, unless dished up by a great chef. So maybe that’s cliche eating.

That’s just how we humans are–we know a good cliche when we see one and we know they are more fun than and old, obscure idiom. So “throw caution to the wind” and help yourself to a chocolate chip cookie. Or even a trip to Paris!

COMING NEXT: Wishes, Lies or Dreams?