Today I received an email from one of my deacons asking me if I could help her with any ideas of Biblical expressions in popular idiom for an empirical research project that is being run by St John's, Nottingham.

I think the idea is to show how Biblical ideas have thoroughly infiltrated present day parlance, but the list they supplied, whilst impressive and including all the obvious ones, had some that I would not think to use even on a Sunday!  Anyway, I did a quick electronic trawl of the book of Proverbs (which sparked a few more thoughts to look elsewhere) and found about 20 not already in their list, thus preserving my (false) reputation as having a thorough knowledge of the Bible (I mean, just who knows the reference for 'a dog returns to its vomit'?!  It's Proverbs 26:11 by the way).

Anyway, if you are reading this and would like to contribute to the project, the contact appears to be Sue Coyne, the Biblical Literacy Project Development Officer, Stapleford Centre whose email is scoyne@stapleford-centre.org

Happy idiom hunting!  I wish I could think of an amusing one to close with but I can't - if you can then let me know.