"Idioms are a testimony to language's tortuous path" is an article about idioms and their origins and evolution within a language. The term idiom encompasses everything from "the colloquial to a metaphor", and usually begins as a phrase describing some real phenomena, then develops a meaning of its own as its use is regularized losing its connection to that original reference (for example, "like a broken record" initially referred to the way a broken record skips causing repetition of sounds, and now means in general that something is repeated over and over again). Idioms are also sometimes associated with a subculture, or identity of its user ("like totally whatever" is the example given in the article).
This evolution of idiom relates to the idea of the development of profanity within a language as well. Initially the curse word literally references to a specific idea (for example hell), then the specific reference of the curse words becomes obsolete, leaving behind a more general application of the word, which is less literal (What the hell?). These parallels between idioms and vulgar language are indicative of the way language in general evolves.
Some interesting research relevant to idioms that I found interesting was actually done by our very own Lera Boroditsky. In one of her studies, she examined the influence of idiom on the conceptualization of abstract ideas, specifically, the conceptualization of time. Speakers of languages which referred to time as being "long" (in English we say, "that took a long time"), time is imagined as linear. Speakers of language that quantify time in volume (In Spanish it makes sense to speak of something taking "mucho tiempo" directly translated as "much time) will understand the time differently.
Idioms are a testimony to language's tortuous path:
http://www.courant.com/features/lifestyle/hc-sundaylifeidioms.artnov25,0,2633476.story
Time in the mind: Using space to think about time:
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/duration-cognition-2007.pdf
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It's sometimes tough to distinguish between an idiom and a conventional metaphor in language (with Lera's work focusing more on the latter), but the two linguistic phenomena are very much related! Why do you think this "figurative" language is so prevalent across languages and cultures? what does it add?
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