I was surprised by the number of comments I got from readers about my last column, which focused on some of the idiomatic expressions in different parts of the country.

What I realized is that idioms, those colloquial sayings, are more than just part of our vocabulary. They’re expressions that define us as Americans. Our speech would be pretty lackluster without them.

Former Montana Secretary of State and longtime state Sen. Bob Brown called me, excited to share some of his family’s favorite sayings. He had some doozies.

Bob’s Uncle Eddie liked to say someone was “busier than a bubble dancer with a slow leak.” That’s probably a World War II-era expression, he figured.

Bob’s family apparently was an expressive bunch. His grandmother was known to exclaim “that’s uglier than a mud fence covered with tadpoles.” I’d never heard that one before.

He also remembered a favorite expression uttered by another longtime local state legislator, Matt Himsl. He used to say, “That’s phonier than granny’s teeth!”

Bob was a veritable treasure trove of odd expressions:

“He’s thick between the horns.”

“That’s as plain as the nose on an anteater.”

“It’s as worthless as hip pockets on a shirt.”

“He’s as friendly as a country dog in town.”

The expression about the country dog jogged my memory about a class on idioms I took as part of my curriculum when I was studying German in Austria at a grammar school affiliated with the University of Salzburg.

Learning idiomatic expressions is a big part of learning any language. It makes you an insider, so to speak, if you can throw in an idiom here and there.

I remember a couple of German idioms. One was “bellende Hunde beissen nicht.” The exact translation is “barking dogs don’t bite,” and I’m guessing it’s similar to our saying, “his bark is worse than his bite.”

The other one I recall is a German expression used to declare how remote or rural an area is. Literally translated, it said, “Where the dog and fox say goodnight to one another.” It seems weird until you realize one of our favorite sayings is “it’s raining cats and dogs.”

It takes an enormous amount of skill and practice to be able to use idioms in a language that isn’t your own. Fans of the popular TV show “NCIS” will recall how Ziva David, an NCIS liaison officer from Israel, was always misunderstanding or mangling American slang. It was a running joke on the show. In one episode she said she felt like a “donkey’s butt” when she meant a “horse’s ass.”

Idioms also came up at church recently.

When our pastor used the phrase “tossed out on his ear” during the sermon, a fellow parishioner asked me afterwards if I knew where that phrase came from — and gave me homework to find out.

The phrase, of course, means to be dismissed or thrown out in disgrace. One source dated it to early 1900s slang. But another reference source said it may be related to expression dating back to the 1500s that was to “set something on its ear.” It meant then that people were at odds with one another.

Language remains an ever-changing, fascinating thing for me. But “don’t have a cow,” I won’t write about them again any time soon.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.