Preface To Dust: Dust Idioms

There are so many interviews on my show this week that I won't get to do one of my favorite things I do on the show, which is talk about idioms.

Many years ago, I volunteered for an adult literacy program & had one student before we moved away, & that student was only technically an adult - he was 18, a high-school drop-out, with two children already.  He said, I was told, at a third-grade reading level.  He was pretty non-communicative, & was terrible at making our appointments, so I only sat with him twice.  The second time, I had bought a giant GED prep book because his goal was to take the GED.  But he had one amazing blindspot: he didn't understand idioms.

That was interesting to me.  He had never heard "raining cats & dogs."  He didn't quite understand the concept of a "bad penny."  We took a test together & he would just look at me, kind of dead-eyed & confused, as I tried to explain why a phrase meant what it did.

That's one reason I enjoy talking about idioms on the show.  I have been doing it pretty much since the show's beginnings, but having this experience with this young man only made me want to showcase idioms more.

Without further ado, here are some idioms using the word dust that I'd talk about tomorrow if I had the time which I won't.

When something collects dust, it's been sitting there unused for a long time.  Figuratively & literally. (You can also say it gathers dust.  If you want.)

If you leave someone in the dust, as in a competition, you have far surpassed them & are way ahead. I think I've even seen a couple of racing movies where the triumphant one yells, in an unsportsmanlike, taunting fashion, "Eat my dust!"

Speaking of movies, there are westerns in which I've heard someone say, "Kiss the dust!"  Meaning, of course, fall, after being struck or shot.

If you're waiting for the dust to settle, you're being patient until things calm down.  The idea being that great activity makes the dust fly.

I haven't heard this one before: charge it to the dust & let the rain settle it.  You apparently say this when you don't want to pay for something, presumably because the service was poor or the thing was of bad quality.  It appears to be an American idiom.

Dust itself can be used as a euphemism for "kill," so it makes since that when someone bites the dust, they die.

If you need to be dusted off, you must pick yourself up after some setback or defeat & begin to try again.  (It's also a baseball idiom, is dust off, & can be also used to mean "to kill.")  A dust-up however is a fight.

That should be enough.  My airbreak feels too long & this is a blog post!