A few days ago I mentioned that I had used an idiom — “you got your ears lowered” — when a friend of mine had gotten a haircut. Well, of course, that got me to thinking…. a lot of expressions that we use involve the word ear or ears.
An expression our friend Anne uses a lot is “play it on the ear.”
Of course, I’ve always heard it as “play it by ear,” but it means to respond to circumstances, not having a fixed plan.
Anyhow if you stop to think about it, we use a lot of ear “idioms,” like: lend an ear, in one ear and out the other, out of earshot, keep your ear to the ground, all ears, fall on deaf ears, grinning from ear to ear, and music to you ears,
Sometimes, you give someone an earful, and are careful what you say because the walls have ears.
And if you’re too young to recognize or remember some of these expressions, maybe you’re still wet behind the ears…..
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