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Definition of Idiom
An idiom is a phrase that conveys a figurative meaning that is difficult or impossible to understand based solely on a literal interpretation of the words in the phrase. For... read full definition
An idiom is a phrase that conveys a figurative meaning that is difficult or impossible to understand based solely on a literal interpretation of the... read full definition
An idiom is a phrase that conveys a figurative meaning that is difficult or impossible to understand based solely on... read full definition
Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis—No Money Trees:
Brown uses an idiom to highlight the discrepancy in wealth between the West Coast rowing programs and the East Coast programs like Yale:
Ulbrickson knew full well that money more or less grew on the trees at Yale, and that funds had been vastly easier to come by in 1928, before the Depression, than in 1936.
Ulbrickson had just learned that the American Olympic Committee and the Olympic Rowing Committee were unable to provide the funds necessary for travel to the Olympics. The committee explained that previous crews, including Yale in 1928, funded their own way to the Olympics.
The idiom “money more or less grew on the trees at Yale” is a play on the famous idiom “money doesn’t grow on trees.” Brown subverts the more well-known idiom to figuratively describe the ease with which Yale students could come by the necessary funds to travel to the Olympics. The idiom highlights the distinction between the East Coast schools and the West Coast schools, as well as between upper-class students for whom money is not an issue and working class students struggling to make ends meet. Yale students and alums, rowers included, tended to come from much more well-off backgrounds than the working class students at the University of Washington.
While Ulbrickson is worried that his crew will be prevented from attending the Olympics because of this funding issue, the reader quickly learns that the University of Washington and the city of Seattle (as well as the rower’s hometowns) band together to raise the necessary funds relatively quickly. What appears to be a significant obstacle instead becomes one more example of how teamwork and mutual trust enabled the University of Washington crew to succeed in rowing at the highest level. It was through collective effort, from both the rowers themselves and from the communities they came from, that won the boys in the boat a gold medal.
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