When is a phrase “idiomatic”?

When someone says an English phrase is idiomatic, how should I interpret it?

1. Does it imply that the phrase contains an idiom?

… having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements (such as ride herd on for "supervise")

For further definitions and more detail, see the following ELU question: What exactly is an idiom?

2. Should I interpret “…‘idiomatic’ as a phrase that means more than the sum of its parts.”?

3. Is it the second definition of idiomatic by Merriam-Webster?

…peculiar to a particular group, individual, or style

4. Or does it mean that the phrase sounds very natural and native-like, as if spoken by a native speaker?

If I were to say “I am owed love” that would sound unusual but we would understand its message. However, if someone said the grammatically correct phrase “My love is not traded” that might sound weird to many speakers and its meaning, I believe, would not be immediately intuitive. One might suspect it was spoken by a non-native speaker; or someone who is particularly adventurous with the language, or, a person deliberately avoiding cliché expressions.

However, would the phrase, “My love is unrequited”, be idiomatic? The PHRASE does not contain an idiom and its meaning is easily deducible. But is it “peculiar to a group”?

Solution 1:

I would say that an idiom is a set phrase compared to speech (speaking) or writing that is said to be idiomatic or not.

English, like all languages, is filled with idioms as defined by the OP: “- having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements (such as ride herd on for "supervise").”

However, speech and writing is said to be idiomatic or not, if it reflects natural speech in a language. A text or speech can be said to be idiomatic or not. That refers to whether or not it sounds natural or not to a native speaker of the language in question, all other factors being equal.

Here is one paper on idiomaticity, or an explanation of what is natural sounding in a language. Typically, one says a text or speech is idiomatic or unidiomatic. idiomaticity

Whether a text or a person's speech is idiomatic or not can only be determined by speakers of a language. So, if you want to judge a person's speech, you are the authority. This sounds crazy I know. But it really isn't. The translation and interpretation professions call for judging speech and text as being idiomatic or unidiomatic as a matter of course. It's the bane of the profession.

A text or speech may or may not be idiomatic at many levels: use of words, use of tenses, collocations, incomplete or incorrect idioms, general flow, overall register (not mixing slang, colloquial and other types of expression incorrectly in a speech act) etc.

Idiomatic usage is of particular concern to translators and interpreters since they strive to make anything they are translating or interpreting sound natural in the target language.

As a recent example, one can examine the interpretation of Putin's speech by his interpreter: speech- spoken language and idiomaticity

I won't post everything, but here are some red flags re the interpreter's speech, which at times is not entirely idiomatic (not natural sounding in English).

PUTIN: If I may, |I throw in some two cents|. We talked to |Mr. President|, including this subject as well. We are aware of the stance of President Trump. I think that we |as major oil and gas power| and I think the United States is a major gas and oil power as well [...]

|Nor we are interested| in driving prices up, because it will |drain live juices from all other sectors of the economy|

• An idiom mistake: to give one's two cents, not “throw in one's two cents” (regarding a topic).

• Non-idiomatic usage: “nor we are interested”; “drain live juices from sectors of the economy”; missing determiner.

“Live juices” is not an idiom in English (It actually made me laugh). Not sure if this was the literal translation from Russian, or, attempting to say something like: to drain power (the juice) away from certain sector of the economy.

Juice in English can mean electrical power but it is not used in the plural except in the idiom: get one's juices flowing, which is rather slangy. But here, it really stands out as non-natural when one is listening to the text as a native English speaker.

Verb tense coupled with idiom mistake: “If I may, I will give” or “I am going to give my two cents.”

Speaking about having the ball in our court in Syria. President Trump has just mentioned that we have successfully concluded the world |football| cup. Speaking of |the football|, actually, Mr. President, I will give this ball to you and now the ball is in your court.

• An idiom: correct: now the ball is in your court.

• Idiomatic issues: speaking of football, not “the football”. Also, if one wants to be picky, there is a mixed metaphor here: football and tennis. I cannot judge if this existed in Putin's speech or if the interpreter fumbled the ball.

• The interpreter needed to say: I will hit the ball to you (tennis) or I will kick the ball to you. And the ball is now yours.

Please note: Mr. Putin's counterpart is not an eloquent speaker at all. And I feel sorry for the person who had to interpret him into Russian, as often the features of Trump's speech are barely literate. However, it is idiomatic though often idiotic.

Summary: - Idioms are set phrases, such as to ride herd on; (put or have) the ball in someone's court;

• Idiomatic text or speech is natural speech to a speaker of the language. The linguistic term is idiomaticity, but it's usually expressed in every day language as: idiomatic or non-idiomatic. A text or speech (a person speaking) might actually be completely idiomatic (natural sounding) and not even contain any idioms. Conversely, speech can be filled with idioms and if expressed incorrectly, a person's speech will sound unidiomatic.

Idiomaticity issues in text or speech can range from minor mistakes in using idioms to all kinds of other usage issues such as incorrect verb tenses, vocabulary usage, word collocations, absence of determiners, incorrect deictic usage (this or that, for example), etc. One can, determine, whether a person's speech or writing is idiomatic overall in a particular language. Interpreters and translators deal with these problems everyday. Their holy grail is always striving to be idiomatic in their translation or interpretation work.

(Note: this does not apply necessarily to literary texts, which are a bit different).

Challenge to readers who are not translators or interpreters, who therefore might not really understand the issues at stake:

How do you know to say in English "Thank God that was an easy test." rather than "Thanks God that was an easy test."? Hmm?

Solution 2:

It is futile to try to formulate the precise criteria of being idiomatic, because the very reason for the existence of that term is to express something for which there are no precise criteria.

The first aspect of the usage of that term that should be noted is that we say that something is idiomatic only when there is an, explicit or implied, contrast with something unidiomatic. The typical uses of the term are in something like 'What you have just said is unidiomatic; the idiomatic way of expressing what you have in mind is . . .' . The term unidiomatic is, in a way, more basic; the term idiomatic means not unidiomatic.

When do we say that something is unidiomatic, then? Suppose that somebody uses words in a way that immediately, before we get the time to analyse it, strikes us as odd, awkward, as at odds with the way people normally speak, even though we understand what was intended. We then pause to think about it, trying to figure out why it strikes us so. In our heads, we survey the relevant rules of grammar, and if we discover that one of them has been violated, we say that the locution was ungrammatical. Suppose, however, that we discover no such violation. We then check whether the words have been used in accordance with their dictionary definitions, and if we discover that they haven't, we point out the mistake. Suppose, however, again, that there is no such mistake to be discovered. Yet, we still feel that something is wrong with what has been said, and other experienced speakers of the language feel the same. It is at that point in the analysis that we help ourselves to the word unidiomatic. It is a word for the deviations from the established patterns of usage, that are not violations of any definite rules of the kind that are embodied in the handbooks of grammar and dictionaries.

One cannot formulate any precise criteria for something being unidiomatic, because it is essentially a leftover category: it exists to encompass all the locutions that sound wrong, but that do not fit any other category of errors. Consequently, one cannot formulate any precise criteria for application of the contrasting term idiomatic.

Solution 3:

There are two distinct and separate meanings of "idiomatic", and a number of fuzzy concepts in-between.

First, if given phrase (in certain contexts) has a recognized meaning that is different from the literal meanings of the component words, that phrase is considered an "idiom", and therefore something having to do with that phrase would be "idiomatic".

But, rather apart from the above, a style of language spoken/written by some group (teenagers, old farts, members of a religious cult, the population of an entire nation) is said to be "idiomatic" to that group.

Thus, my writing above is probably recognizable as "idiomatic" to the US Midwest, and would be distinct in style from the "idiomatic" writings of someone from Boston or London or Bombay. This distinction has nothing to do with the use of "idioms" in the sense first mentioned in this answer.

And when you go to discuss whether "unrequited love" is idiomatic, you need to define which definition of idiom/idiomatic you're using. If you are simply asking if it's a common expression in the writings of the referenced culture then Ngram (and other tools) will give you an answer. If you are instead asking if "unrequited love" is an idiom, the answer is no (as accurately as an answer can be given to such a question). "Unrequited love", while it has some emotional baggage, carries no meaning that is distinct from the words in the phrase.

Solution 4:

I imagine what you are interested in is understanding more precisely what is meant when that term is used on this site.

In this context, then, your 3 and 4 fit most often. Some additional thoughts:

In our devotion to using language precisely and evocatively, and to helping others do so too, we become nitpicky. That's good. Without nitpicky people, there would be no ELU.

When we see something that doesn't sound right, and try to explain what's wrong with it, we may be able to cite a rule or point out a pattern we've noticed. For example, we could explain, the verb needs to agree with the subject, and point out which word is actually the subject (because it got a bit buried in a complex sentence).

Participants here are more or less resourceful than others in finding technical explanations for the judgments and corrections we make.

But for everyone: when we can't find a technical explanation, but our ear tells us that something isn't right, we fall back on "It's not idiomatic," and we offer a more idiomatic, or natural, expression, as an alternative.