Becoming The Muse

27 Figures of speech

The Idiomatic Man is a cartoon creation by Ella Baron for the Times Literary Supplement and has made rounds all over the world as people tried to solve the puzzle and find the 27 hidden expressions. This idiomatic cartoon is a literal representation of several English figures of speech.

**If you haven’t tried it, you might want to stop reading further, click open the image in a new tab so you can attempt it without distractions then come back and see how your powers of interpretation matches your knowledge of English expressions, seems easy enough right?

Ella Baron is currently the staff cartoonist for the Times Literary Supplement responsible for creating the weekly cartoon and the occasional cover.

I have since become a fan of her work; its meaning and the many processes hidden behind the scenes

Proud of my @TheTLS cover on sexual assault. Drawn from @rebeccawhatsun's incredible article, my experiences -& Kintsugi, a Japanese art whereby broken ceramics are repaired with gold, in order not to disguise but instead make visible those cracks as part of that object’s history pic.twitter.com/eGsuZaFRgw

— Ella Baron (@EBaronCartoons) February 13, 2019

Since this week’s @TheTLS cartoon was all about the hidden process- I took some progressive screenshots to shed some light on mine. The most process-revealing bit of all this is that I forgot to post this video earlier because I was busy drawing the next cartoon! pic.twitter.com/zkHeNqVnx3

— Ella Baron (@EBaronCartoons) February 1, 2019

The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.

Ernest Hemingway

The Idiomatic man was created with 27 figures of speech in the artist’s mind but plausible variations also exist, shout out to the mysterious Allie

Figures of Expression

1. In a nut shell

2. Piece of cake

3. Cherry on the cake

4. A screw loose

i) hit a nail on the head

ii) I would lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on

iii) screwed in the head

5. Stiff upper lip

6. Born with a silver spoon

7. Ear worm

i) put a bug in your ear

ii) in one ear out the other ear

iii) worm out

8. Bald as a coot

i) bird brain

ii) bird on the roof

iii) my hair is like a bad’s nest

iv) bird’s eye view

9. Keeping your card close to your chest

i) not playing with a full deck

10. Joker in the pack

11. Ace up your sleeve

i) tricks up your sleeve

12. Heart on your sleeve

13. Handed on a silver plater

i) served up on a plate

14. Spill the beans

15. Big cheese

i) as holey as Swiss cheese

ii) more holes than Swiss cheese

16. Red herring

i) A fish out of water

17. To tie the knot

i) knots in your stomach

ii) at the end of your rope

18. Put all you eggs in one basket

i) dont count your eggs before they hatch

ii) hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk

19. Walking on egg shells

i) hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk

ii) you can’t make an omelette without breaking an egg, can you?

iii) haste makes waste

20. Shadow of your former self

i) cast a different shadow

ii) walk in someone’s shadow

21. No room to swing a cat

i) got a cat by the tail

22. The cat’s got your tongue

23. Kick the bucket

24. Pull up your socks

25. Cold feet

i) put your best foot forward

ii) the boot is on the other foot

ii) foot loose and fancy free

iii) on bended knee

iv) head over heels

26. From rags to riches

i) rich man poor man

ii) riding your coat tails

iii) a stitch in time

iv) clothes dont make the man

27. Time flies

i) time waits for no one

ii) race against time

iii) running behind time

**if you have any additional expressions that can be derived from the image do share