One of the advantages of English is also one of the things that makes it an incredibly difficult language to learn if you don't pick it up as a child. That's because English is absolutely chock full of sayings, phrases, proverbs, similes, aphorisms, idioms, and so on. If there's a situation that a human could conceivably find themselves in, some English-speaking group has a saying for it. Indeed, if they don't have a saying for it, they've probably borrowed one from French or Chinese or Yoruba and just translated it very badly (or not at all).

This does mean that if you do speak fluent English, no matter what's going on, you can probably pull up a quote or a ditty that perfectly encapsulates the situation. Sometimes it will be a Biblical moral that might offer you a guide as to how to proceed. Sometimes it's some old wives' tale that reminds you to approach a particular situation with a certain caution. Sometimes it's just a witticism from Alexander Pope, Dorothy Parker, or Oscar Wilde that pinpoints the absurdity of what is going on and at least offers you the consolation that you're not the first person to be in such a pickle.

How do you like to use Engish phrases, and what does it tell us about you? Let's find out!