Ideogram

An ideogram is a character or symbol representing an idea or a thing without expressing the pronunciation of a particular word or words for it.

"Chinese characters are ideograms".

To hit the hay

 
To hit the hay means to go to bed or prepare for sleep. The origin, of course, comes from the idea of a weary wanderer ending up in a barn and settling down to sleep on the soft hay. A wonderful romantic image until you realise there would be bits sticking in your ear and down your neck. And, of course, all the creepy crawlies...
 

Pizzas and Pizzaz

Pizza (pronounced PEET-sa) is an open pie of Italian origin made of thin bread dough, baked in a circle and spread with a spiced mixture of tomato sauce, cheese and other ingredients.

Pizzaz (also spelled pizazz and pizzazz) (pronounced PUH-ZaZ) is an informal word meaning dazzling style; flamboyance; flair; vigorous spirit; energy; dynamism; or excitement.

You can, of course, occasionally get pizzas with pizzaz!

Rictameter

A rictameter is an unrhymed, 9-line poem with a syllable count of 2/4/6/8/10/8/6/4/2 in which the first and last lines are the same.

Andromeda Jazmon on her blog 'A Wrung Sponge' recently wrote one and I decided to borrow the idea (and even borrowed her first / last line). This was the result.

Long night.
Can't sleep at all.
But then I rarely can.
It's one of the prices I pay
for being daft enough to be poorly.
Not that I chose to be ill
but I didn't look after myself
when I was young.
Long night

Chine

A chine of meat or fish is a cut which includes at least part of the backbone.

A chine is also a steep-sided river valley where the river flows through coastal cliffs to the sea. Typically these are soft eroding cliffs.

It can also mean the top of a ridge; the spine of an animal; a sharp angle in the cross section of the hull of a boat.

Chine is also French for China so when I googled for an image of a chine all I got were French maps of the far east!

Vespertine

Vespertine is a term used in the life sciences to indicate something of, relating to, or occurring in the evening. In botany, a vespertine flower is one which opens or blooms in the evening. In zoology, the term is used for a creature that becomes active in the evening, such as bats and owls. Vespertine animals are frequently described as nocturnal, although this usage is not strictly correct.

The Large Flowered Evening Primrose is a vespertine flower.

When fish ride bicycles

Just as the phrase ‘Pigs will fly’ is used to indicate an unlikely event, the phrase ‘When fish ride bicycles’ is also sometimes used for the same purpose.

I am was amused to find on the Internet a statue depicting this saying.

Addlepated

Addlepated is a beautiful word. Definitely one of my favourites.

Addlepated means addled; confused; stupid; flustered; fatuous; bungling.

And how about this for a great quotation:-
"Blathering like the addlepated nincompoop that you are"; "A confused puddingheaded, muddleheaded fellow"- Isaac Sterne

To put the boot in

This British phrase has both a literal and a metaphorical meaning. Literally it means to attack someone by kicking them again and again, usually when they are lying on the ground.

Metaphorically it means kicking somebody when they're down; to make a bad situation worse.

“He lost his job and then his wife put the boot in by announcing she was leaving him.”

Idiom

An idiom is a phrase characteristic of a particular language, that cannot necessarily be fully understood from the separate meanings of the individual words.

A classic example of the idiom is the description of heavy rain in various languages. For example, in Afrikaans it rains old women with knobkerries (clubs).

In Danish it rains shoemakers' apprentices, the Dutch get pipe stems, the Greeks suffer from falling chair legs and the Icelanders receive fire and brimstone. In Catalan it rains boats and barrels while the Chinese have to suffer dog-poo.

In English we often say it's raining cats and dogs. The Germans also find it's raining young dogs. At one time (before stair rods virtually disappeared) the English also suffered from it raining stair rods while rods also fell on the Swedes (along with ladles).

In France and Poland it rains frogs while I seem to recall from my French lessons that nails and taxis were also likely to plummet from the skies!

Instead of taxis the Slovaks find its raining tractors. The Czecks are less ambitious and only receive wheelbarrows.

The Germans say it's raining cobbler boys whilst in Ireland it's throwing cobblers knives. The Welsh get forks along with their knives. The Portuguese get rained on with penknives and, most remarkably, toads' beards. In Spain it's even raining husbands!

Perhaps my favourite is the Norwegian idiom - it's raining female trolls.

And then, with Welsh, we are back to were we started with Afrikaans since it rains old ladies and sticks...