Last week a client of ours recounted the story of how their ten year old son came home in tears after doing a NAPLAN/IELTS test (I do not know which) and was asked to explain the idiom "Two Peas In A Pod". As the child of migrants, both of whom also didn't understand what it meant, he felt stupid for not knowing this.
Immediately in my mind there are two possible questions to be asked in responses to this:
1 - How can he not know this?
2 - Why should he know this?
The first question is likely the response by a lot of native English speakers who should be able to explain at length what this means. The second is kinder response which immediately asks the epistemological question of "why?" is a thing.
English as this vulture of a language, which not only stole anything it could from its surrounding neighbours but which when it ventured out into the wider world, stole anything it could from everywhere (and put it in a museum), steals words, phrases, stories, and idioms, and then synthesises them, remanufactures them, mangles them, distorts them, and forges new ones out of them simply because it can. I suspect that the English language is able to do this with such efficiency because in principle there is only one hard and fast rule of grammar and that is that sentences must contain or imply a verb. Other than that, although there are pockets of convention and usage, they're never universal, and as long as a speaker/writer is understood then that is good enough.
To properly analyse the nature of that first question, we need to first test it against a theoretical ideal ten year old boy who is a native English speaker. How can he not know what "Two Peas In A Pod" means? How about we ask the reverse question - how can he possibly know what "Two Peas In A Pod" means? A ten year old child is still in Year 4 in primary school; is still learning things like English grammar and spelling; and by virtue of only being ten years old will have a smaller vocabulary that I as a 44-year old reasonably well educated male. It's simply not reasonable to expect that a ten year has absorbed masses of words and idioms; especially if they are not inclined to use them. I can't even think of an occasion where a modern ten year old boy in 2022 would have the need to use the idiom "Two Peas In A Pod". Fortunately I have a whole cast of imaginary people for the purposes of testing things a I do happen to have a theoretical ideal ten year old boy who is a native English speaker; who is waiting in the foyer of my imaginary mind palace. Let's call him Billy Brown from Sydney Town.
If we draw back the camera of our mind's eye to an even broader view, would our ten year old Billy Brown know what a pod is? Would they know that peas grow in a pod? How are you supposed to make the leap that peas grow in a pod, when peas usually come in a plastic packet from the freezer? If you've only ever seen frozen peas (which is not altogether an unreasonable assumption), then intuitively peas look like they grow on runners; rather like other vegetables do. To be honest, not even I know what Mr McCain does with all his discarded pea pods. In my mind's eye at this point, Mr McCain is walking around his factory like a bumbling buffoon with some vast oversized pan of discarded pea pods before tripping over and we hear the punchline "Ah McCain, you've done it again."
Let's assume that our Billy Brown from Sydney Town knows that peas grow in a pod. Admittedly I do not know why that is relevant to a ten year old boy but if were going to make an ass out of u and me then were going to have to assume some things (ass-u-me). Billy Brown knows that peas grow in a pod. He might be able to determine that they are small and green but how exactly do you make the idiomatic leap to know that the idiom of "Two Peas In A Pod" means things that look like they are similar/belong together/could have grown up together. Even upon explaining this, there's a trifficult level of abstraction which makes describing an idiom hard.
This leads very nicely to the second question of why should Billy Brown from Sydney Town know this? He may encounter this idiom at some point in his life but to assume that he already knows what it means and therefore should be judged upon that basis, is deeply unfair.
Remember, the nature of the English language is that it is a vulture which steals anything that it can and from everywhere it can, simply because it can. There is no reason to think that it will not continue to do so in future like it has done in the past. Immediately we run into the broader problem of relevance of any idiom to Billy Brown from Sydney Town as a ten year old boy. There is no reason in principle to assume that any idiom which was used in the past, will not be replaced many times over within Billy's lifetime and by the time that he is 80 in the year 2092, the English language will have gone on grifting and stealing just like it always has done and always will do.
Generally speaking, if you want to hear the absolute cutting edge, the sharpest razor point, the farthest reach forward of what an accent sounds like, then you should listen to Billy Brown and his ten year old friends speak. In Sydney, his friends will have surnames like Brown, Smith, Jones, Wong, Jagamurra, Ng, Sadikot, Singh, Jonsson, Kim, Leow, McMurray, Baptiste... already the average group of ten year old children is speaking to people who do not look like each other, born of parents who come from everywhere, and to expect that they will be using idioms which originated from before the century before last, is a nonsense. Not only is it a nonsense to assume that they will be using old idioms but to test them on the use of those idioms is patently unfair. Moreover, this shows a distinct degree of willful blindness on the part of the testers, who have not realised that Billy Brown and his ten year old friends will not only be using their own idioms but are very likely to encounter things and features of the English language which have not yet been invented.
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Or rather, this is the point of this question in an English language test. My suspicion is that the examiners do not care if Billy Brown from Sydney Town knows what this idiom means. What I think is going on, is even even Billy has never ever seen this idiom before, that he will make a guess and then explain why he has made his guess. Even if it is the wrong guess, it is still reasonable that Billy will make a guess and give reasons. What he will be marked upon, is his proficiency in explaining the reasons for his guess, through the use of language. The thing that this exam is likely testing is not what someone knows of the English language but how well they can use it.
In the year 2092, Brown, Smith, Jones, Wong, Jagamurra, Ng, Sadikot, Singh, Jonsson, Kim, Leow, McMurray, and Baptiste, will all be sitting around the table playing hactractor complaining about how the young people of 'today' don't know how to use the English language properly.
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