Water under the bridge

water under the bridge – this is always one of my favourite examples to demonstrate what an idiom is.  Regardless of which language you are learning when you speak to a native speaker,  trying to understand their idiomatic language is challenging, especially with a group of native speakers. An idiom is a group of words whose meaning is different from the meanings of the individual words – confronted with “water under the bridge” what is a non-native speaker of English meant to make of this collection of words – especially as we were just talking about a disagreement we had, and now you are talking about a bridge?  And what about the water, do I have to do something with this water, is it for cleaning the bridge?  I am totally confused.  In short, “water under the bridge” means that a situation has happened in the past, and it is now forgotten and no longer important.  Maybe two people had a disagreement about something in the past, but it is no longer important, and one person might say to the other, “That’s water under the bridge” – all is forgiven, it was such a long time ago, we don’t need to dwell on it anymore.  Also, it means that what has happened, can’t be undone and there is no point worrying about it anymore.

“I know we have had some disagreements in the past.”  “Don’t worry, that is water under the bridge.”

When you understand how this idiom is used, you can see some of the logic behind the meaning, with water constantly flowing out to the sea, it is never still (like time) and the water has already flowed under the bridge and will not return to that point.  The present version of this idiom probably comes from an earlier expression, “there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since . . .” which was used to express that a lot of time had passed since a particular event had occurred.  The shorter version, “water under the bridge” has been used since the late 1700s or early 1800s.

“When we are mastering another language, we make lots of mistakes, but in the end, it’s all water under the bridge.”

I’m not gonna try to defend, or undo what’s been done.  All I could say about whatever’s been done, it’s been done, and it’s water under the bridge.  I have no regrets of my life. (Ike Turner)

. . . and of course, Adele gives this idiom another twist, with the lyrics “Our love ain’t water under the bridge,” meaning our love is still important – from her 2015 song – “Water under the bridge.”

Photo by Wai Siew on Unsplash (Shatin Park, Hong Kong)