The English language has produced some wonderful idioms down the years, from “getting on like a house on fire” to “a breath of fresh air”. But as they are so common, can you use them skilfully and appropriately in your creative writing?

You can approach this question in many ways. One of them might be to learn where these phrases originated. In many cases, they come from great past writers. Examples include:

·       “Let sleeping dogs lie”, an idiom that means a decision not to rekindle an argument, comes from Geoffrey Chaucer, famous for writing the Canterbury Tales in the 14th century.

·       Green-eyed monster, meaning a jealous person, comes from William Shakespeare in Othello, as do many other famous phrases, such as “crocodile tears” and “to wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve”.

·       To “cry wolf” comes from Aesop’s fables

Other examples include phrases of Biblical origin, such as the ‘Writing on the wall’ or ‘salt of the Earth’.

Some even have a meaning that is very different to what you might imagine. “Not enough room to swing a cat” is not about animal cruelty, but the use of a ‘cat o’ nine tails’ whip used to flog misbehaving sailors and the absence of enough space in a room to do this.

How Can You Learn More About Idioms?

Idioms Made Easy is available from us as a creative writing PDF that will help you understand these phrases, where they are from, how they may be used and, as a result, how you can incorporate them into your writing.

Idioms can sound great, but if used in the wrong context or without understanding the meaning, they could undermine the message you are seeking to convey.

The other error you could make is to mix them up by mistake. You don’t want to write that a couple of people are “getting along like a train on fire” or “let the cat out on the hot tin roof”.

By using these famous phrases accurately, you can add some extra sparkle to your writing, as well as have some great fun learning just where these colourful idioms came from.