Idioms and formal Usage are widely used. How do we make them reliable?
Certain websites devoted to idioms claim that they are not used in formal conversations or writing; that is, they claim that these creatures are always used in only informal situations. Is this a common belief among the British, or is this just a whiff of how the site is all British? For “according to” and “at first glance” are far from “informal”.
One problem is that the term idiom has differing definitions. I would be surprised if the websites you refer to make the claim that a.) according to and at first glance are idioms and b.) such idioms are not used in formal conversations or in writing. How do people communicate with one another?
According to Wikipedia, an idiom is a phrase that cannot be deduced from its constituent words or compared with one or more idioms. She is
having kittens. Some examples: What makes her nervous?
What are the signs of an up nose? = You irritate me. I enjoy the fact that I don’t know more than you. I have a million other complaints about that. I will never, ever, never fix this.
In informal language there are many idioms. Why? Many of these idioms can be explained with a simple “do” but doesn’t look very different in a formal conversation, so it is also true that most of them don’t appear in a formal conversation. Is there no complete evidence against the existence of idioms in such situations?
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