Ideas and Idioms

Regardless of which language is your primary one, there is going to be an element of that language we call idioms. I would venture to say that idioms cause more problems of understanding than any other element of language.

Simply understood, an idiom is "an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements" or " a speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements." Thus, to kick the bucket has nothing to do with kicking or buckets and being under the weather has nothing to do with weather. Since an idiom may also be "a regional speech or dialect; a specialized vocabulary used by a group of people; jargon," we add more layers of confusion to interpretation and understanding. "Stop bugging me," "He's bugging out," and "There's a bug in the program" are examples of such idiomatic speech.

Those who are learning a second language frequently run into problems precisely because of idioms. The idioms present in one language are usually not the same as those of another language. Trying to translate directly gives us some very peculiar sentences. Boy one speaks Spanish; boy two does not. Boy one is trying to teach boy two about how to be a good date. In English he tells boy two that when on a date throw flowers out the window at her. Boy two is very puzzled. "I should throw flowers at her?" he asks. So he goes out and buys a bunch of flowers and when the girl approaches his car to get in he opens the window and he pelts her with the roses. She turns around and goes back into her house, deciding that this boy is just not worth the time. Boy two comes back to boy one very ticked off. "Your throwing flowers bit got me nowhere!" Bad advice from boy one to boy two? No, idiom problems. Spanish has an idiom--"hechar las flores por la ventana" which translated word for word means to throw flowers out the window. But the correlated meaning of that idiom in English is to compliment someone, no flower throwing needed.

There are also phrases we use as part of living together as human beings that are idiomatic. Perhaps chief among those are the two questions "How are you?" and "How do you do?" Unless you are visiting with someone who is quite ill, the questions are not about how you are feeling or how you are getting along. In fact, they aren't questions at all--they are greetings. The answer to "How are you?" is not a long litany of your gastric problems. "Fine, thank you" is all that is required, whether true or not. In less formal parlance, "How's it going?" is also a greeting rather than a true question.

There was some discussion pre-Tisha Ba'Av about the use of "have an easy fast." Some people objected to the use of "easy" as not being truly indicative of what Tisha Ba'Av is about or should be about. A few people substituted "good" for easy. A few substituted "meaningful" for easy. Some thought that "positive" words such as good or easy were not what one should be wishing someone else for this fast. Their feeling seemed to be that the fast is about recognizing what you have done wrong and where you need to improve. Here's my take. "Have an easy fast," like "Have a good day" is idiomatic. It is the fast day substitute for "Hiya." It lets us greet someone without using "hello" or "hi" which we are not supposed to use that day. What I may mean by "have an easy fast" does not have to correlate to what you may mean by it; you can take that phrase any way you want to. But don't assume that the way you take it is how I meant it.

I am among those who are not "good" fasters. "Only" getting a headache and feeling nauseated would actually make it a "great" fast for me. My concern for people who are fasting has to do with their physical condition during the fast. When I say "have an easy fast" I'm talking about not becoming physically ill or debilitated. For me, "have an easy fast" is the equivalent of "stay well." If you want to, consider it as a "gashmius" greeting. As to the ruchnius, that's between you, yourself and God.

So yes, I hope you all had an easy fast yesterday. Just keep in mind that that is an idiomatic phrasing. It's not an opening to tell me all about your actual fasting and what you thought about and what you decided to do or not do. Like "how are you" and "fine, thanks," have an easy fast only requires "thank you, you too" as an answer.