Consider the term(s) idiotism. It can mean a peculiarity of phrase, or idiom. Or it can mean the condition of lacking intellect, or idiocy. Certainly these are widely disparate senses; and each stems from a unique Greek root. But they do share the element "common", in the pejorative sense.

edit: According to the OED, in the 16th C., instances of the word idiot are found with initial n, transferred from an; nidiot was further popularly corrupted to nidget; cf. the modern vulgar pronunciation, sometimes graphically represented as idget.

the Contrarian

So if a nidiot never leaves home, he's nidicolous?

And, thanks--I have wondered how the term idgit (or however it's spelled) derived from idiot.

Um--in your first sense, how come the word isn't idiomism?

Jackie, I'm not sure of this, but it seems that if you get down to specifics, idiom is the form of expression, and idiotism is the manner of expression.

"So what's the difference between form and manner," is heard from the back of the room.

FWIW (a cheap laugh?), the French form of both idiotisms is idiotisme

So--when I say 'you-all' or 'your-all's', I am ...doing? using? committing?...an idiotism here, because I'm the only one who does it, right? However, were any of you-all to visit 'most anywhere around where I live, you'd hear one or the other everywhere you went.

I would call this "idiom", jackie. ANd it reminds me of something my sister told me - she was in a restaurant in Kentucky with a group of friends, and one of the friends remarked to the waiter, "I can hardly understand your accent". Whereupon the waiter smiled and replied "Honey, down here I'm not the one with the accent."

I'd call it idiom, too, but.

P.S.--See? 'Bout everybody in the South calls people by pet names; so if any of you have thought I was gettin' a mite too familiar--well, it's just SOP.

Note to self: Jackie's not being familiar, just soppy

Bingley

I don't get it... what's it stand for?

Standard Operating Procedure.

just soppy

re "What does it stand for?"

Standard Operating Procedure Poops Yet-again.