Recently, when I told someone that I needed writing motivation he said, “Leanne, pull up your socks and get to work!” It’s a little paraphrased, but that’s the jist of it. Pull up your socks and get to work.

Pull up your socks!

My first reaction was to giggle because I was barefoot at the time, but after that, two things happened: I actually listened (and got the work done that ended up becoming the writing inspiration post to kick off my new blog), and I googled “pull up your socks” because I’d never heard that phrase used like that before.

It’s an informal phrase used in the UK, according to the online Cambridge Dictionary, and it’s a wonderful idiom that I am adding to my mental writing dictionary. What’s an idiom? It’s an expression with a particular meaning that should be taken figuratively, not literally. (In other words, I wasn’t actually being told to pull up my socks.)

You can say “pull up your socks” or “pull your socks up” and either way it means to improve what you’re doing, or how you’re behaving, because it’s not good enough. It was a much needed kick in the behind that I needed to stop procrastinating.

Why does this deserve a whole post and not just a “this is cool advice” tweet? Because of the part where “pull up your socks” is an idiom, and idioms are cool, especially for writers.

Idioms can lend a cultural identity to a character, give them personality, or add a hint to their past. What you might consider to be a well-known idiom, such as “it’s raining cats and dogs,” might be completely new to someone else, or said in a different way depending on where the person is from, age, etc., so be sure of who is saying what. (My grandmother used to say, “it’s raining to beat the band,” for example.) If used correctly (and not overused), it can be a simple and subtle way of giving the reader another piece of a character’s…character. 

Think about things you say regarding the weather (it’s raining cats and dogs). Or how you might describe someone after a night out (like something the cat dragged in), and so on. We use these phrases without thinking for the most part, or at least I do, and for non-English speakers who want to learn the language they are little gems to study and memorize to get a leg up on sounding like a native. On the flip side, someone using an idiom should remember that they tend to not cross language streams, not exactly, and so you’ll need to understand that a non-native speaker might take the phrase literally. That can either create a hilarious scene or a misunderstanding that needs sorting – there are so many possibilities because all languages use idioms!

You can find dictionaries of idioms to purchase, and many websites to visit with lists of the most common English idioms used. Writing Explained has a good list with meanings and origins (when they could be found), and ESL Buzz has a list of 200 common idioms with meanings here. (I actually found that list via an infographic on Pinterest.) 

So if you need motivation, pull up your socks and get to work. If you don’t, take a load off and read up on idioms and how they can help with your writing. What are your favorite idioms?