Idioms?

Posted by Victoria S Dennis on June 18, 2007

In Reply to: Idioms? posted by ESC on June 18, 2007

: : : 1. The drunken tongue speaks the sober mind
: : : 2. Wine in, truth out

: : : Please clarify whether the above phrases are idioms and, if negative, - what are the idioms expressing the meaning "a drunken man will reveal a hidden thought"?

: : I'd call them proverbs. "In vino veritas," borrowed from L@tin ("In wine there is truth"), is more familiar to English speakers than the two above. It isn't an idiom, either. Idioms don't have the job of condensing folk wisdom into a pithy saying. ~rb

: Types of phrases = www.phrases.org.uk bulletin_board 21 messages 482.html

Rather commoner than "wine in, truth out", and I think rather older (it goes back in one form or another to the 14th century) is "When the wine is in, the wit is out", which just means, more or less, that drunk people behave foolishly. (VSD)