About Elyse
Elyse Bruce started Idiomation in January 2010 primarily for her XY child who is now a young adult, as well as to help others better understand idioms. Originally intended for those who have difficulties with figurative language, soon history buffs, newspaper hounds, educators and everyday folk began visiting because they, too, were interested not only in the idiom of the day but the history behind the idiom of the day. But this success didn’t come as a surprise to Elyse.
Elyse Bruce is a professional musician, composer, singer-songwriter, playwright and author, illustrator and visual artist, as well as the parent of a teen with multiple disabilities and health conditions. She balances her time writing music, songs, plays and novels, articles, painting and illustrating, and mastering new technology, as well as teaching songwriting and marketing courses.
She owns and authors three blog sites: The Elyse Bruce blog, the Missy Barrett blog, and the Idiomation blog. A number of her articles have been published, republished, and reblogged by mainstream and alternate media, and researched articles on her Idiomation and Elyse Bruce blogs have been used as reference material in a number of books by recognized and respected writers and authors such as the late Daniel Menaker who wrote for the New York times, Atlantic, Redbook, and other well-known publications; national bestselling author Chris DeRose; and well-known idiom authority Ralph Keyes who also coined the word ‘post-truth’ in 2016.
Elyse has more than 20 published books to her name (and others under various pen names) as well as two instrumental CDs — “Quietudes” and “Dreamtime” — and the “Countdown To Midnight” CD. She has illustrated novels and short stories the most recent of which is “Amazing Adventures” anthology of pulp fiction short stories edited by award-winning author and scriptwriter, Joel Mark Harris.
As mentioned earlier, she is the mom of a young adult with multiple serious health conditions including autism spectrum disorder, Myasthenia Gravis (a rare, incurable, life-threatening neuromuscular disease that strikes 2 in 1 million children), and an assortment of less-serious-than-those-already-mentioned diagnosed health issues. Elyse is also very active in a number of disability and rights communities across Canada and the United States.
As busy as she is, Elyse makes time to create and promote new and exciting projects and awareness events that involve — and benefit — as many people as possible.
In her spare time, she bakes chocolate chip cookies which she then generously shares with friends and family.
Historically Speaking 
Tom Crippen said
Great site, thanks for doing it.
Sharon Wezniak said
Thanks for the great piece on “the buck stops here!” I had recently told the kids that their great, great grandfather, Brigadier General Augustus Bennett Warfield, coined that phrase, but I had no proof. THANK YOU!!!! It was great to google that!
Elyse Bruce said
You’re very welcome, and I’m glad that you found the “Idiomation: Historically Speaking” entry on the idiom. I’ll bet your kids were thrilled to bits to hear about this. 🙂
Simon English said
Thank you Elyse for that piece on ‘Snap Shot’. I was not only interested in it for the idiom but what you
used for the examples.
On this. the east side of the Atlantic, we have many accents and dialects among the inhabitants of the
Islands. These can be traced back to the various ancient languages of the inhabitants and invaders. Some I
find almost incomprehensible. Anyway in my youth when I went to work in a Stained Glass Studio in Birmingham
the men would refer to their lunch break as a ‘Snap’ not ‘Snack’ which I assumed dated back to a time of a
quick break in the factories and mines. We have the card game ‘snap’ which involves the quick matching of
pairs of cards.
However I was more interested , nay, grateful for your reference to Reginald Gilbert shooting in India.
He was my Great Grandfather who had died before the First World War and whose widow must have moved to
England and bought a house that she decorated with all his hunting trophies.
As a boy in the 1950s I would visit my grandfather (Reginald’s son) where the heads of Sambhur buck and
Buffalo glazed down at me . Time, worm and moth had not been kind to them and after he died my Uncle had a
big tidy up to make the house inhabitable. Much went on a big bonfire. He had to be ruthless but I rescued a
few bits. one of which was a big rusty machete in a cane scabbard. I was told that it had belonged to my
great grandfather’s gun bearer. He (Gilbert) had been asked to shoot a bear that had fatally mauled a man in
the village. When tracked to its lair it charged Gilbert, whose gun jammed, and the bearer killed the bear
with his machete. Just as well or I may not be here today. The Machete was purchased as a memento of his
life saved. It now hangs in my house much to my wife’s irritation.
Many years later in my mother’s attic I found a tin full of glass slides. These were all the photographs
of the big game hunts. all properly taken in high detail on a tripod, except for one. This is titled ‘Man
Mauled by Bear’ He is in a bad way and the photo is a bit shaky and clearly hand held and un posed. So it
really is a ‘snap shot’ photograph by a hunter who would take a ‘snap shot’ at a sambhur.
S.English.
Jude Morris said
On your entry on “many a mickle makes a muckle,” the idiom is actually from the Scots language and was brought to the U.S. by lowland Scots immigrants who spoke Scots rather than Gaelic. This would be where George Washington would have heard it. A “mickle” is a smaller amount of anything than a “muckle” which is a large amount. Thus many a mickle (small thing) makes a muckle (larger thing).