Do you enjoy splitting hairs?

Would you cut off your nose to spite your face?

Do you wear your heart on your sleeve?

Were you told as a kid to keep a stiff upper lip?

What are all these body idioms?!

Hold your horses! English loves idioms.

Splitting Hairs

We are not talking about split ends here. But could you imagine sitting and taking a strand of hair, and actually trying to split it? How painstaking! How time consuming! And maybe, just maybe, pointless.

Someone who splits hairs can be a little annoying. They insist on every detail being accurate. If it’s 7:29 p.m., don’t say 7:30. If you were 8 minutes late, don’t say you were 10. If the teacher grimaced in pain, don’t say she howled. If your friend said, “I’ll call you in a bit”, don’t misquote her and say, “She said she would call in an hour.”

People who split hairs or who like to, should all be relegated to a club: The Hair Splitters. They can sit around splitting hairs with each other and getting into each other’s hair (ha ha, unintended joke and another idiom. Curious? Look it up).

Cutting your nose off to spite your face

Don’t take this one literally. Actually, don’t take any expression literally. They’re all to be taken figuratively. But you can picture it. Most idioms are very expressive, visually.

So picture cutting your nose off. Ouch!

And what’s the silly reason? That’s right, to get even with your face.

Say you were mad at your face for some unknown, obscure, off-the-wall reason. And to get back at it, you cut off your nose. Low-level brain logic? You might be getting revenge on your face, but at what cost? Pain to you!

And that’s what cutting your nose off to spite your face is all about. You’re trying to make a point, get even with someone, make them feel your wrath and all that, but in the process you suffer too!

For instance, your older sister is only allowed to attend a certain wild party if you go along too. That’s what your parents told you. But since you’re mad at your sister because she stole your sweater, wore it to school, spilt ink on it, and now it’s ruined forever, you say you’re not going to the party (even though you want to). Get it? You’re trying to get back at your sister, but you’re not doing yourself a favour either. You’re trying to throw your weight around. Make your sister realize you’ve got power. Even though you’ll both end up sulking in separate bedrooms.

Wearing your heart on your sleeve

Sounds a bit silly, and it isn’t used much anymore. But since my mission is to save the English language one word at a time, there’s no reason not to revive this little beauty.

Picture (again, because idioms are so visual!) yourself in a lovely outfit, and your heart clearly adorned on your sleeve for all to see, instead of tucked safely inside you with your other organs, bones, nerves, blood vessels, and all the other magical inner workings of your body that you hardly bat an eyelid about (ooh, another idiom – look it up).

Now as we are all generally aware, the heart is the seat of emotions in literature, in songs, blah blah blah. Right? My heart hurts! My heart pains! My heart aches! But you’re not really talking about a heart attack, you’re talking about feelings. Someone hurt you, or you’re lovesick, or you miss someone, or… the list could go on ad nauseum (until you want to puke your guts out or… toss your biscuits. My goodness, the air is thick with idioms today!).

So, let’s just put it this way. If you tuck your heart away where it belongs, no one can see your feelings, right? If you’re wearing your heart on your sleeve, however, everyone is aware of your emotional rollercoaster. You’re sad? Angry? Upset? Livid? Exuberant? Ecstatic? Don’t worry, everyone knows. You hate the guy on TV, but love the kid in the commercial? Everyone knows that too. Basically, your life’s an open book (who’s counting up the idioms in this blog?).

And finally, a stiff upper lip.

Picture it. Your upper lip. Stiff, not moving, maybe frozen because of an ice lolly or because you’re trying to keep a wooden face, not unlike a poker face. But my friends, a stiff upper lip has nothing to do with playing poker and hiding your hand. It has to do with… drumroll please…

Hiding your feelings.

That’s right, possibly the exact opposite of wearing your heart on your sleeve, you will not betray any emotion whatsoever. Someone just die? You mustn’t cry, especially in front of everyone. Suffered a terrible loss? Don’t show it on your face. Seething with inner turmoil? Your face must be a mask.

Think about when you’re trying hard not to cry. Maybe because you’re watching a movie with friends, family, or in public. Maybe because you’re afraid of the reaction you’ll get. One of the first things that starts to twitch on your face is your upper lip! Try it now. Pretend you’re going to start bawling about something any minute now. Go through the antics. Do you feel any twitching? Except unlike a rabbit, it’s your mouth and not your nose that is out of control.

Now try and keep your upper lip from moving. In fact, do your best to keep it stiff. Got it? It’s like someone just turned off the potential faucet of tears. Not possible to cry when your upper lip’s not moving. You try!

And that, my friends, is the wondrous stiff upper lip. You’ll never forget it.

In the comments, tell me 2 things:

1) Which of these 4 idioms did you have occasion to use this week, and how did you use them?

2) How many idioms are in this blog post discounting the 4 I chose to expostulate on?

Have a lovely week, and don’t be afraid to use big words.