How many people does it take for a phrase or idiom or adage to catch on?

Question

Say some guy says, "Looks like I'm killing two birds with one stone." The other guy he's with, perplexed, questions what he just said. "It's a new phrase I made up - to kill two birds with one stone. Do you like it?" Second guy says, "Do I like it? I love it! I'm gonna start using that phrase in my daily vocabulary. 'To kill two birds with the one stone'."

Something like that?

Answer 1

It may be a bit more complex than that. Idiomatic phrases, adages, maxims, etc. can enter the language through a variety of avenues. Some of them come from actual events, some come from stories or legends, some come from observations or common phrases in a specific profession or field, some are just clever observations or re-phrasings of "common knowledge", some are pet phrases of famous figures or authors. Others come from songs or poems, etc. etc. Some even enter the language from foreign languages, although it is also quite common for two separate cultures to make highly similar observations, or have essentially identical phrases.



Mandarin Chinese for example has "to kill two birds with one arrow", which may or may not have been borrowed. English uses the phrase, "waiting for something to fall into one's lap", or "out of the sky", Mandarin again uses a very similar phrase, but the thing falling is a meat pastry. Go figure.



It is really quite involved and complex, you could write a whole paper on it (or book, if you were more enterprising).

Answer 2

Clearly no set number. It's usually a case of an expression 'whose time has come'.



Clearly your example was coined at a time when many people hunted bird by slinging stones - some of them got lucky and hit two. If someone tried a similar idea today it wouldn't catch on - you try putting into circulation a expression about grindstones or similar.

Answer 3

It depends on the memetic force of the ones using it and the ones hearing it. Some people are parrots and will pick up on any hackneyed line that sounds cute to them (usually subconsciously); others are recalcitrant and refuse to use buzzwords and such.



Eventually, though, it makes it to the news and that's when it's officially played out and no longer worth using. I remember nearly sh!tting myself with disgust back in 2000 when I heard a tv anchor use the term "bling bling".

Answer 4

Based on your example: one person. They would most likely say it around others and etc.etc. Your welcome.