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A proverbial phrase or expression is a type of conventional saying similar to a proverb and transmitted by oral tradition. The difference is that a proverb is a fixed expression, while a proverbial phrase permits alterations to fit the grammar of the context. [1] [2] In 1768, John Ray defined a proverbial phrase as:
Finally, do not add pseudo-nicknames that are just some writer's (often a sports journalist's) evocative turns of phrase. If a newspaper headline refers to an Australian player with something like "Melbourne Menace Takes Title", that does not magically make the player's nickname "the Melbourne Menace".
Most Wikipedia readers are native speakers of dialects that have largely dispensed with obsolescent words and turns of phrase, while other readers have learned (or are still learning) English as a second language. It is important for these audiences that Wikipedians write articles in accessible, modern wording.
In contrast, jargon is most commonly used within specific occupations, industries, activities, or areas of interest. Colloquial language includes slang, along with abbreviations, contractions, idioms, turns-of-phrase, and other informal words and phrases known to most native speakers of a language or dialect. [15]
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).
"Even a worm will turn" is an English language expression used to convey the message that even the meekest or most docile of creatures will retaliate or seek revenge if pushed too far. [1] The phrase was first recorded in a 1546 collection of proverbs by John Heywood , in the form "Treade a worme on the tayle, and it must turne agayne."
Phrase structure rules as they are commonly employed result in a view of sentence structure that is constituency-based. Thus, grammars that employ phrase structure rules are constituency grammars (= phrase structure grammars), as opposed to dependency grammars, [4] which view sentence structure as dependency-based. What this means is that for ...
This is a list of idioms that were recognizable to literate people in the late-19th century, and have become unfamiliar since.. As the article list of idioms in the English language notes, a list of idioms can be useful, since the meaning of an idiom cannot be deduced by knowing the meaning of its constituent words.