To be overjoyed

We all encounter surprises in life that make us extremely happy. When you see your favorite food, receive a gift you’ve long desired, or win a game, a huge smile spreads across your face, doesn’t it? In our language, there is a wonderful idiom that describes this broad smile and state of overwhelming joy: Ağzı kulaklarına varmak.

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Idioms are groups of words that allow us to express our feelings and thoughts more vividly. When someone is extremely happy and their joy is evident in every expression, we use this idiom.

Sometimes, instead of saying “I am very happy,” we prefer to say “my mouth reached my ears.” This expression conveys just how great our happiness is. When a person smiles, the muscles in their face pull upward, and the corners of their lips truly seem to approach their ears. That is why the abstract feeling of happiness transforms into a concrete and wonderful expression on our faces.

You will often hear this idiom at school, at home, or while playing with friends in the park. For example, when describing a friend’s joy after receiving an award for working hard at school, you could say, “When he was given the certificate of excellence, his mouth reached his ears from sheer joy.”

Sometimes, what makes us happy is the voice of someone we love. To describe the happiness of a young child who hears the voice of their mother over the phone from afar, we might say, “When the child heard his mother’s voice, his mouth reached his ears.” Similarly, this idiom perfectly captures the joy of a student who passed a difficult exam and can no longer sit still.

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Important Turkish writers have frequently used idioms in their books to convey emotions most effectively to readers. Our renowned writer Reşat Nuri Güntekin describes a character’s pride and joy in one of his books with this sentence: "I had long heard how the Pasha, whenever relatives and friends’ children came to kiss his hand, used me as an example, and my mouth reached my ears." Being held up as an example by elders created such a huge smile that the author still remembers it from his childhood.