Yp1-03(2) Idioms: Motivation and Etymology Dmitrij Dobrovol’skij and Elisabeth Piirainen Abstract

3.3. Cultural history

Phraseology is a linguistic domain that, due to its interrelation with culture, can be better explored and understood in a cultural and historical context than merely in a synchronic perspective. Every idiom has its history or ‘biography’ and can be categorized according to its culture-boundness (cf. Sabban 2008). In the course of history, an idiom may undergo various influences. The impact of cultural and historical features is evident in the evolution of an idiom. It is unpredictable how its outward structure and figurative meanings will develop. In addition to that, the interpretation of the underlying mental image can be subject to historical transformations, as example (9) has shown. This must especially be kept in mind when looking at the etymology. Let us illustrate this point with idiom (10).

(10) to look for a needle in a haystack

‘to try to find something very small that is lost among many other things; to struggle with searching for something without any prospect of success’

Taylor (1962: 190) assigns the idiom to the domain ‘household’, based on the constituent needle (together with the idiom to be on pins and needles), although the domain ‘country life’, which is also mentioned by Taylor, would probably be more adequate (because of the constituent haystack). However, there is an entirely different way in which the idiom can be assigned to a certain cultural domain. There are many folktales involving futile searches for objects. Most probably, the idiom refers to one of them, the jester’s tale of a fool who is hunting for a needle in a haystack. The Grimms’ fairy tale No. 32, “Clever Hans”, tells us about a fool who puts a needle into a hay cart where the needle later must be found (Aarne/Thompson 1961 No. 1685). If there is a synchronically relevant connection to this once well-known narrative motif, the cultural domain in question must be defined in different terms. It is no longer an aspect of “material culture” but a fragment of the knowledge domain of “intertextuality”. At the same time, idiom (10) is connected to a group of narrations which have been well-known since ancient or medieval times and live on as short forms in modern idioms.