Idioms: Variants, Modifications and Errors

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IDIOMS: VARIANTS, MODIFICATIONS AND ERRORS
Elizabeth Dawes
University of Winnipeg
In the past decade advances in computer technology have brought about dramatic changes in the practice of lexicography with corpus-based research becoming the norm. The technological advancements have fueled interest in collocations,
idioms and other multi-word units as computer searches enable lexicographers to
rapidly retrieve lists of occurrences of relatively rare phraseological units.
Lexicographers have come to rely on powerful statistical software to produce corpus-derived frequency data which is used to order meanings, variants, etc.
While computer technology has greatly facilitated access to linguistic data, it has
also fostered the belief that the sheer quantity of data can somehow replace the
careful, detailed and systematic analysis which must be at the heart of any lexicographical work. Unfortunately, the fundamental difficulties that phraseology presents to lexicographers cannot be overcome through technological means: the
interpretation of the data cannot be left to the computer. Computerized searches of
corpus material will turn up not only idiom variants, but also stylistic modifications as well as errors. It is up to the lexicographers to sort them out. In this article,
I will seek to define and distinguish these three phenomena. My study is based on
a dictionary project involving some 2,000 French idioms, all of which are used in
both France and Quebec and all of which have phraseological variants. The data
analyzed is derived from a journalistic corpus including newspapers and magazines
from the 1990’s.
1. phraseological variants. Idioms have traditionally been viewed as fixed
expressions and have long been treated as such by lexicographers. Variants, seen as
modifications of a base form, have received scant attention and appear only sporadically in dictionaries where they are treated in a haphazard and inconsistent fashion.
My own theoretical view of the idiom and the variant is inspired by the work of
Valerij M. Mokienko (1980). I reject the notion of a fixed lexical form and consequently the definition of the variant as a modification of the same. Too often, it
proves impossible to establish a base form given the astonishing array of variants
found in corpus material outside the narrow confines of the dictionary.
Furthermore, such an approach does not allow for the diachronic evolution of
idioms nor does it take into account the existence of the same idiom in various
dialects and languages.
I consider the idiom to be an abstract model or phraseoschema which may be
actualized in many different forms, each of which is a phraseological variant. The
idiom may be likened to the infinitive of a verb which represents a network of pre-
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dictable forms, each part of the system of the language. One variant, either the most
frequent one or the one most commonly represented in dictionaries, will be selected
to represent the model for practical purposes. For example, in the case of aspectual
networks such as mettre/ avoir/ garder/ remettre la main à la pâte ‘to put, to have, to
keep, to put again one’s hand to the plough’, the inchoative mettre may be selected.
A phraseological variant is a conventional syntagm, recognized by native speakers. Of course, given the low frequency of many variants, one cannot expect all
speakers to recognize a given variant, let alone understand it or actively use it themselves. Variants of the same idiom may belong to different morphological categories, some being verbal, others nominal, etc. All of the variants of a given idiom
will normally have one lexeme in common. Failing that, they will have at least one
lexeme in common with at least one other variant of the same idiom. For example,
although the variants le glaçage sur le gâteau ‘the icing on the cake’and la cerise sur
le sundae ‘the cherry on the sundae’ do not share a lexeme, each has a lexeme in
common with la cerise sur le gâteau ‘the cherry on the cake’. Finally, the meaning of
each variant must be learned as it cannot be derived from the meaning of its individual constituents. However, many variants include a constituent which is used literally as with the verb promettre ‘to promise’ in promettre monts et merveilles ‘to
promise the earth’. Consequently, there exist pairs of variants which differ in meaning in an entirely predictable fashion, e.g., à bon escient ‘advisedly’ and à mauvais
escient ‘ill-advisedly’.
There are two main types of phraseological variability, non-functional and functional. Non-functional variants are identical in meaning and use, differing only in
form. Recurrent patterns of non-functional variability are found at the graphic,
morphological, syntactic and lexical levels, the examples below illustrating some of
the most common patterns.
1.1. non-functional variability.
1.1.1. graphic variants. Idioms consisting of a noun modified by an adjective or
containing such a phrase are used with or without hyphenation. The use of hyphenation indicates that they have become lexicalized and are viewed as a single unit, e.g.,
prêter main(-)forte à qqn ‘to come to somebody’s assistance’.
1.1.2. morphological variants. Idioms consisting of a prepositional phrase containing the masculine adjective tout are used in the singular or in the plural, e.g., à
tout crin/ à tous crins ‘diehard’. Since the distinction between the singular tout and
the plural tous is lost in oral French, one cannot choose a form on the basis of how
it sounds. This plays an important role in the conservation of these morphological
variants in written French.
1.1.3. syntactic variants. Idioms containing two parallel phrases are used with or
without a coordinating conjunction, e.g., avoir bon pied (et) bon oeil ‘to be as fit as
a fiddle’.
idioms: variants, modifications and errors
505
1.1.4. lexical variants. In verbal idioms, the durative aspect is expressed with the
verb demeurer or the more common rester, e.g., rester/ demeurer lettre morte ‘to go
unheeded’.
1.2. functional variability. The second type of variability is that of functional
variability where variants differ in meaning or use. Recurrent patterns of functional
variability exist at the morphological, syntactic, lexical and semantic levels, the
examples below illustrating some of the most common ones.
1.2.1. morphological variants. Nominal variants may be derived from verbal
idioms through the suffixation of the verb. The suffix -age is used to form masculine nouns, e.g., se serrer la ceinture/ le serrage de ceinture ‘to tighten one’s belt/ belt
tightening’.
1.2.2. syntactic variants. Verbal idioms containing an intransitive verb may be
used in a transitive construction expressing the factitive aspect. The factitive may be
expressed analytically with the verb faire, e.g., sortir de sa coquille/ faire sortir qqn de
sa coquille ‘to come out of one’s shell/ to draw someone out of his shell’; or synthetically with a verb having a factitive meaning, e.g., aller au charbon/ envoyer qqn
au charbon ‘to do one’s full share of the dirty work/ to make someone do his full
share of the dirty work’.
1.2.3. lexical variants. Verbal idioms containing the verb mettre may be used with
the iterative remettre, e.g., mettre/ remettre la main à la pâte ‘to put one’s hand to the
plough (again)’.
1.2.4. semantic variants. Many idioms may be used both literally and figuratively,
e.g., sortir du bois lit. ‘to come out of the woods’ and fig. ‘to come out of the woodwork’.
All too often, idioms have been treated as isolated phenomena and the systematic
nature of their variability has been given little consideration. Through the use of a
relational database, it was possible to discover patterns of variability affecting entire
groups of idioms, which would not have been apparent had each idiom been studied individually. From a corpus of occurrences of approximately 2,000 French
idioms, I have established a typology of phraseological variability including some
sixty patterns, a few of which were illustrated above.
Of course, many isolated cases of variability do exist, particularly at the lexical
level. However, at least some of these are inherent in the language and are therefore
quite predictable. For example, the fact that the modern French noun couverture
‘blanket’ came to replace the archaic couverte, which has been preserved in
Canadian French, explains why the archaic variant tirer la couverte à soi ‘to take all
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the credit for something’, still used in Canadian French, became tirer la couverture
à soi in the norm.
2. stylistic modifications. Stylistic modifications, very common in journalistic
language, differ from variants in that they are not conventional, although they may
become so through time. They are deliberate changes to the form or meaning of a
variant made by an individual in order to achieve a stylistic effect or to adapt the variant to a particular context. They are created using one of the following six processes:
2.1. substitution. One or more constituents of the variant is replaced by one or
more constituents of the writer’s choosing. This type of modification is the most
demanding of the readers (and can be quite challenging for non-native speakers)
because it requires that they mentally reestablish the original constituent of the
variant. The relationship between the latter and the substitute may be phonetic,
morphological, syntactic, lexical or graphic as in the following example where the
idiom sain et sauf ‘safe and sound’ is modified by replacing the adjective sain
‘healthy, sound’ with its homophone saint ‘saintly’ when referring to the pope: ‘Le
pape repart saint et sauf.’ (Lib1).
2.2. coordination.
a. a constituent word (or syntagm) of the variant, or less commonly, the complete
variant, is linked by a coordinating conjunction to a free word of the same morphological category (or to a syntagm having the same structure), e.g., sauter du coq à
l’âne ‘to jump from one subject to another’: ‘[...] on saute allègrement du coq à l’âne
(ou de la fourmi au scarabée!) [...].’ (LD) where the conjunction ou ‘or’ links du coq
à l’âne ‘from the rooster to the donkey’ with the free syntagm de la fourmi au scarabée
‘from the ant to the beetle’.
The relationship between the original constituent and the coordinated element(s) may be phonetic, graphic, morphological, syntactic or lexical.
b. variants of two distinct idioms containing the same verb and having the same
syntactic structure are linked by a coordinating conjunction, those with a different
syntactic structure being linked without a conjunction, e.g., tomber en faillite ‘to go
bankrupt’ and tomber comme des mouches ‘to drop like flies’: ‘[...], les boutiques
tombent (en faillite) comme des mouches!», [...].’ (LP) where the juxtaposed adverbial phrases are dependent on a single verb.
2.3. subordination.
a. a variant of an idiom is subordinated in a relative clause to a variant of a distinct idiom, e.g., de là à + infinitif, il n’y a qu’un pas ‘from there to x, it’s only a short
step’ and franchir le pas ‘to take the plunge’: ‘Mais, de là à rejoindre le Front, il y a
un pas que beaucoup hésiteront à franchir.’ (Edj) where the relative pronoun que
‘that’ represents the noun pas ‘step’ in franchir le pas.
idioms: variants, modifications and errors
507
b. a variant of an idiom is embedded in the variant of a distinct idiom with
which it has one or more constituents in common, e.g., commencer qqch du bon pied
‘to get off to a good start’ and bon pied bon oeil ‘fit as a fiddle’: ‘Pour commencer
l’année du bon pied (bon oeil), rien de tel qu’un voyage [...].’ (LS) where bon pied
bon oeil is the embedded variant.
2.4. expansion. New elements which may be prefixes, determiners or modifiers are
added to the variant of an idiom without affecting its basic structure, e.g., prendre
le taureau par les cornes ‘to take the bull by the horns’: ‘[...] et on prend le taureau
constitutionnel par les cornes.’ (LP) where the adjective constitutionnel ‘constitutional’ modifies taureau ‘bull’.
2.5. reduction.
a. the verb in a verbal variant or, less commonly, the noun in a nominal variant
is omitted, e.g., mettre du beurre dans les épinards ‘to add a little to the kitty’: ‘Du
beurre dans les épinards’ (LM).
b. the variant is reduced to a pair of nouns linked by a coordinating conjunction
not found in the idiom itself, e.g., voir la paille dans l’oeil de son voisin mais pas la
poutre dans le sien ‘to see the mote in one’s neighbour’s eye and not the beam in
one’s own eye’: ‘La paille et la poutre’ (Dev).
c. the final syntagm or clause of the variant is omitted, e.g., deux poids deux
mesures ‘double standard’: ‘Deux poids...’ (Act). Suspension points are used to indicate that the remainder of the variant is understood.
Reduction is associated with headlines, titles and names of organizations.
2.6. remotivation
a. attention is drawn to a specific constituent of the variant by the presence of a
formally or semantically related word, e.g., être aux anges ‘to be in seventh heaven’:
‘Angélique était aux anges [...].’ (Dev), Angélique and ange ‘angel’ having the same
Greek root.
b. the context in which the variant is used activates its literal meaning, e.g., ne
pas avoir dit son dernier mot ‘to be still capable of intervening’: ‘La radio n’a pas dit
son dernier mot: les ondes FM servent de support à toute une série de nouveaux
services, en attendant l’avènement de la radio numérique.’ (LM).
Certain words and formulaic phrases are used to draw attention to the literal
meaning, including littéralement ‘literally’, sic ‘sic’, au propre comme au figuré ‘literally as well as figuratively’, sans jeu de mots ‘no pun intended’, permettez l’expression
‘pardon the expression’, si l’on ose dire ‘if you’ll pardon the expression’, pourrait-on
dire ‘so to speak’, si l’on peut dire, si on peut dire, si je puis dire, etc. ‘so to speak’.
With all six processes, punctuation, including suspension points, brackets, quotation marks, dashes, exclamation marks and capital letters, is often used to signal to
the readers that a variant has been modified.
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3. errors. While stylistic modifications are deliberate changes to a variant made by
an individual, errors are unintended violations of the rules governing the form, use
or meaning of a variant. Errors fall into two main categories, the first containing
unacceptable or ungrammatical forms and uses which are aberrant in all contexts
in the language, including:
3.1. Orthographical errors, especially the improper use of the circumflex, e.g.,
faire tache d’huile ‘to gain ground’: ‘L’appel à la désobéissance a fait tâche d’huile,
[...].’ (LP). Typographical errors, which are made in the production process rather
than in the writing process, typically include misprints, doubles and transpositions.
3.2. morphological errors.
a. incorrect agreement of a constituent in the context, e.g., long comme le bras
‘very long’: ‘[...] avec une liste de demandes longues comme le bras, [...].’ (LP) where
the adjective should agree with liste (‘a very long list of demands’) rather than
demandes (‘a list of very long demands’).
b. incorrect agreement between constituents, e.g., tous azimuts ‘all-out’:
‘Animaux et poupons attendrissent les publics tous azimut.’ (LP) where the plural
determiner tous precedes the singular noun azimut. Acceptable forms of this idiom
include the plural tous azimuts and the rarer singular tout azimut.
c. incorrect conjugation of the verb, e.g., aller se faire voir ‘to get lost’: ‘[...], «HLI
fout l’camp, vas te faire voir au Vatican».’ (LP) where the singular present imperative of the verb aller ‘to go’ should be va.
3.3. syntactic errors
a. incorrect syntactic context, e.g., partir du bon pied ‘to get off to a good start’:
‘[...] le temps d’économiser assez d’argent pour [...] partir du bon pied ma carrière
dans la police.’ (LS) where the intransitive verb partir is used transitively with the
direct object ma carrière.
b. incorrect internal structure of the variant, e.g., jouer au chat et à la souris avec
qqn ‘to play cat and mouse with someone’: ‘[...] un Bruce Willis «bleaché» qui, [...],
joue au chat et de la souris avec le directeur du FBI [...].’ (LS) where the preposition
de replaces à perhaps due to interference from the nominal variant jeu du chat et de
la souris ‘cat-and-mouse game’.
The second category of errors includes those forms, uses and meanings that are
unacceptable only within the context of a particular idiom, including:
3.3.1. syntactic errors
a. incorrect co-referentiality, e.g., dire ses quatre vérités à qqn ‘to tell someone a
few home truths’: ‘«Travaille un peu, chose, avant que je te dise mes quatre
vérités...»’ (Voir) where the possessive adjective mes and the subject je are co-referential. The correct form of the possessive adjective would be the second person tes
referring to the indirect object te.
idioms: variants, modifications and errors
509
b. incorrect syntactic context, e.g., renvoyer qqch aux calendes grecques ‘to postpone something indefinitely’: ‘Steve Avery, qu’on avait relégué aux calendes grecques, devait être utilisé exclusivement en relève.’ (LS) where the direct object is an
animate noun instead of an abstract noun.
c. transposition of the constituents of a variant containing multiple syntagms or
clauses, e.g., mettre la charrue devant les boeufs ‘to put the cart before the horse’:
‘[...]: il disait «qu’il ne fallait pas mettre les boeufs devant la charrue».’ (Dev). Here,
it is stated that one must not put the horse before the cart!
3.3.2. lexical errors
a. substitution of a constituent by a formally related word, e.g., faire la grasse
matinée ‘to sleep in’: ‘Faire la grâce matinée avec mon chum.’ (LL) where the noun
grâce ‘grace’ replaces its adjectival homophone grasse ‘fat’.
b. substitution of a constituent by a semantically related word, e.g., prendre le
taureau par les cornes ‘to take the bull by the horns’: ‘Comme «prendre le boeuf par
les cornes»!’ (LS) where taureau ‘bull’ is replaced by its hypernym boeuf ‘steer’.
c. substitution of a constituent by an optional constituent of the same idiom,
e.g., vendre la peau de l’ours (avant de l’avoir tué), ‘to count one’s chickens before
they’re hatched’, literally ‘to sell the skin of the bear (before having killed it)’: ‘[...],
qu’ils ne commencent pas à tuer la peau de l’ours [...].’ (LS) where the verb tuer ‘to
kill’ replaces vendre ‘to sell’, the citation reading ‘to kill the skin of the bear’.
d. substitution of a constituent by a constituent of a distinct idiom which is
structurally or formally similar, e.g., ne pas mettre tous ses oeufs dans le même panier
‘not to put all of one’s eggs in the same basket’ and être dans le même bateau ‘to be
in the same boat’: ‘[...]: je n’ai pas mis tous mes oeufs dans le même... bateau!», [...].’
(LS) where bateau ‘boat’ replaces panier ‘basket’.
3.3.3. semantic errors. Semantic errors involve the misinterpretation of a variant,
e.g., renvoyer qqch aux calendes grecques ‘to postpone something indefinitely’: ‘[...]
de faire aboutir cette affaire qui «remonte aux calendes grecques» [...].’ (LP). The
verb renvoyer meaning ‘to postpone’ or ‘to send back, to refer back’ was mistakenly
understood in the latter sense and replaced by the synonym remonter ‘to date back’.
The very banal errors of spelling and grammar which crop up in all written language affect idiomatic language but are of little particular interest for the study of
phraseology. Of much greater interest are the errors that can only be considered as
such in the context of a given idiom. The many examples of stylistic modifications
cited above suggest that the form and meaning of a variant’s individual constituents
are very much present in the mind of the writers. Those who have mastered a given
idiom may exploit its formal and semantic relationships with other idioms and
words in the language and even in other languages while those with an insufficient
mastery will find these same relationships a source of confusion and errors.
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4. an example. The lexicographer is faced with the task of determining whether a
given form is a variant, a stylistic modification, or an error. The following idiom,
which is a frequent source of both stylistic creativity and errors, will serve to illustrate the complexity of this problem. The idiom renvoyer qqch aux calendes grecques
means ‘to postpone something indefinitely’. While renvoyer ‘to postpone’ is a commonly used verb, the noun calendes ‘calends’ meaning ‘the first day of any month in
the Roman calendar’ (OED 318d) is rather obscure. Since the Greeks did not use calends in their reckoning of time, the adjective grecques ‘Greek’ created a humorous
contradiction. The French expression is a translation of the Latin idiom ad calendas graecas ‘at the Greek calends’ meaning ‘never’.
4.1. variants. This idiom has a number of verbal variants, formed with the verbs
renvoyer: ‘[...], il a renvoyé aux calendes grecques la réforme des retraites, [...].’
(LM); envoyer: ‘N’a-t-on pas envoyé aux calendes grecques la démarche éducative
qui doit présider toutes les approches pédagogiques?’ (Dev); remettre: ‘[...] pour
remettre la ratification aux calendes grecques [...].’ (LM); reporter: ‘[...], de reporter
cette ratification par les Communes aux calendes grecques, [...].’ (LM); and
repousser: ‘M. Rabin a repoussé aux calendes grecques un projet de réforme de la loi
antiterroriste.’ (LM).
The elliptical verbal variant renvoyer qqch aux calendes from which the adjective
grecques has been omitted is not found in Canadian French: ‘L’objectif de Paris est [...]
de renvoyer aux calendes les dossiers plus épineux.’ (LM).
Nominal variants are formed with nouns derived from these verbs, including
renvoi from renvoyer: ‘[...], - les islamistes ont donc obtenu le renvoi aux calendes
grecques des élections législatives [...].” (LM); remise from remettre: ‘[...] pour expliquer la remise aux calendes grecques de cette décision.’ (LP); and report from
reporter: ‘[...] ne conduise à un report aux calendes grecques de l’adhésion de leurs
pays à la CEE.’ (LM).
These forms constitute variants because they are conventional syntagms appearing frequently in the corpus, having a lexeme in common (calendes) and a meaning
which cannot be derived from the meaning of the individual constituents.
4.2. stylistic modifications. The stylistic modifications of this idiom focus on
the adjective grecques ‘Greek’. Adjectives designating other national origins are used
to adapt the idiom to a particular context. This may be accomplished through:
a. substitution, e.g., belges ‘Belgian’: ‘Alors que l’Eurostar va parcourir le Kent à
la vitesse d’un cheval au galop et que la liaison vers Liège est remise aux calendes
belges, [...].’ (LM).
b. coordination, e.g., italiennes ‘Italian’: ‘Décors et costumes sont actuellement
remisés au Stade (ils prendront prochainement le chemin de l’Europe) et les
représentations prévues pour Toronto et Vancouver sont, pour l’instant, renvoyées
aux calendes grecques... ou plutôt, italiennes.’ (LP).
idioms: variants, modifications and errors
511
The forms cited here are not variants because they are created by an individual
for a specific purpose using one of the six modification processes. They are not conventional, being single occurrences dependent on a particular context.
4.3. errors. The idiom is most often used to refer to the government’s postponement of projects, proposals, reforms, etc. The direct object of the verb must be an
abstract noun designating a postponed item of business. In the following two
examples, the error lies in the nature of the direct object:
a. a concrete noun, the Canadian flag banished from City Hall in Quebec City:
‘J’aime à croire que le drapeau du Canada s’élèvera bientôt en face de l’hôtel de ville
de Québec et que vous n’userez pas d’astuces, (J. Parizeau) de tergiversations, de
faux-fuyants pour le reporter aux calendes grecques.’ (LS).
b. an animate noun, an athlete who lost his position on a team: ‘Steve Avery,
qu’on avait relégué aux calendes grecques, devait être utilisé exclusivement en
relève.’ (LS).
The idiom refers to the postponement of something to a time in the future so
distant that it will never come. In the following example, it is incorrectly made to
refer to the distant past through the use of the verb retourner ‘to return’: ‘Par exemple, et sans retourner aux calendes grecques, quel souvenir avez-vous de la session
qui a produit Further Definitions.’ (Dev).
5. conclusions. While traditional dictionaries have long presented idioms as fixed
phrases with sporadic variants, corpus-based research does not support this view.
In light of the astonishing variability of many idioms such as the one examined
here, it is necessary to recognize that an idiom is in fact a network of variants. In the
case of idioms with a constituent belonging to an antonymic pair (eg. good/bad) or
to an aspectual set (eg. to become/to be/to remain), it is clear that each variant is an
equally necessary part of a system. Viewing the idiom as a fixed form and the variant as a modification thereof cannot account for this fact.
For the lexicographer seeking to identify the network of variants belonging to a
single idiom, the challenge is to distinguish an idiom’s phraseological variants,
including the rare, the archaic and the regional, from stylistic modifications and
errors. The typology developed from the analysis of a corpus of some 2,000 modern French idioms provides a basis for judging potential variants. For example,
faced with a single occurrence of de tout bord ‘of all kinds’, one might hesitate to
accept it as a variant of de tous bords. The fact that a series of similar idioms presenting the same type of morphological variability exists (à tout crin/ à tous crins
‘diehard’, à tout venant/ à tous venants ‘to all and sundry’, de tout côté/ de tous côtés
‘from all sides’, de tout poil/ de tous poils ‘of all kinds’, en tout cas/ en tous cas ‘in any
case’, en tout genre/ en tous genres ‘of all kinds’) strengthens the case for de tout bord
being a variant rather than an error. Typological studies of idioms and their variants will prove very fruitful, allowing the establishment of models of phraseological variability and ultimately the discovery of its underlying principles.
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A systematic study of stylistic modifications led to the identification of the six
processes used by writers as well as the various typographical conventions which
signal to readers that the idiom has been modified. Again, these provide criteria for
evaluating potential variants.
It is the phraseological errors that are the most problematic for the lexicographer
working with a purely synchronic corpus, given that what may appear to be an error
today may in fact be accepted as a variant tomorrow. This applies specifically to
errors considered as such only within the context of a given idiom. The systematic
study of the erroneous use of idioms will ultimately lead to the discovery of the various patterns of phraseological evolution.
Finally, by using a relational database, it was possible to study idioms not as isolated phenomena but as part of the system of the language. This approach will
prove invaluable in both practical and theoretical terms, bringing about improvements in lexicography and forcing us to change the way we think about idioms.
1
Abbreviations used in this paper are as follows:
French press: Edj = L’Événement du jeudi; Lib = Libération; LM = Le Monde
Quebec press: Act = L’Actualité; Dev = Le Devoir; LD = Le Droit; LL = Le Lundi;
LP = La Presse; LS = Le Soleil; Voir = Voir.
REFERENCES
Mokienko, Valerij M. 1980. Slavjanskaja frazeologija. Moscow: Moskva vissaja
skola.
Oxford English Dictionary, Compact Edition. 1981. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford Univ.
Press.