Speaking of diarrhea, in Canada, the "Dictionary of Prince Edward Island English" has an interesting (and well-used) word for diarrhea: the flying axehandles. Being originally from PEI, I have a copy of that dictionary.
Dictionary Of Prince Edward Island English
What's a fun idiom that you've learned recently?
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Re: What's a fun idiom that you've learned recently?
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Re: What's a fun idiom that you've learned recently?
One for Tommus's collection.
Weten van tevoren wat voor vlees je in de kuip hebt. Which means: to know beforehand what you're up against.
Someone used it today at work.
Weten van tevoren wat voor vlees je in de kuip hebt. Which means: to know beforehand what you're up against.
Someone used it today at work.
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Pedantry is properly the over-rating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to.
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Re: What's a fun idiom that you've learned recently?
"What's a fun idiom that you've learned recently?"
"504 gateway timeout" translates to "I don't understand how the internet works as well as I thought I did as changing to a different browser isn't going to fix this"
"504 gateway timeout" translates to "I don't understand how the internet works as well as I thought I did as changing to a different browser isn't going to fix this"
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Re: What's a fun idiom that you've learned recently?
battre à plate couture > beat into a flat seam > definitively defeat/beat someone
https://www.projet-voltaire.fr/origines ... e-couture/
https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/f ... 9#locution
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être tiré à quatre épingles > to be pulled by four pins > dressed with care
https://www.expressio.fr/expressions/et ... e-epingles
À l’époque, les tissus n’étaient pas aussi soyeux et aussi fins qu’aujourd’hui. Les étoffes étaient tellement raides que les coutures, boutonnières et ourlets, en raison de leur double épaisseur, incommodaient et boudinaient quiconque les portait. Les tailleurs avaient donc comme travail, en plus de leur savoir-faire en couture, de les rendre plus souples en les aplatissant. Pour ce faire, ils pouvaient utiliser l’ancêtre du fer à repasser : le carreau, ou bien utiliser une latte pour les marteler. On appelait cette technique : rabattre les coutures.
Au XVIe siècle, en référence à cette pratique, arrive l’expression « rabattre la couture à quelqu’un », désignant le fait de frapper une personne violemment.
Il faut ensuite se tourner vers le théâtre pour comprendre le succès de l’expression au siècle suivant. Dans les farces de l’époque, des scènes récurrentes faisaient le bonheur des spectateurs. L’une d’elles représentait un tailleur, venu frapper allégrement son client afin de rendre ses coutures moins apparentes. Le personnage était ainsi rossé, sans avoir rien demandé, sous prétexte qu’il fallait le rendre plus élégant. En définitive, la victoire écrasante du tailleur, reléguant son client en coulisse pour le reste de la pièce, a permis d’utiliser l’expression telle qu’on la connaît aujourd’hui
https://www.projet-voltaire.fr/origines ... e-couture/
https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/f ... 9#locution
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être tiré à quatre épingles > to be pulled by four pins > dressed with care
https://www.expressio.fr/expressions/et ... e-epingles
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Re: What's a fun idiom that you've learned recently?
Persian: باد سموم, or "poison wind"; a destructive wind. From the context (it was listed alongside famine, pestilence, mildew, locust, and caterpillar in the Old Testament), I assume it means a wind that destroys crops.
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Das Leben ist ein langer, roter Fluss
Die Klinge ist mein Segelboot
Die Klinge ist mein Segelboot
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Re: What's a fun idiom that you've learned recently?
Iversen wrote:In Danish you have to buy a farm "Det koster en bondegård". But you can also use the slightly weird "det koster det hvide ude af øjnene" (it costs the white out of the eyes - probably referring to the aspect of the eyes in people who are about to faint).
I once discussed the syntax of this last construction with a professor at my institute, and my stance back then was that "det hvide ud af øjnene" fills the role of a quantitative adverbial but also that quantitative adverbials have a tendency to look like objects. Well, maybe they are objects ... and then "at koste" (to cost) is transitive with the possibility of some kind of direct object (the price) and a non obligatory indirect object (the one who has to pay).
I've just come across a similar expression in French:
coûter les yeux de la tête > cost the eyes out of your head > extremely/impossibly expensive
https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/f ... 5#locution
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Re: What's a fun idiom that you've learned recently?
DaveAgain wrote:coûter les yeux de la tête > cost the eyes out of your head > extremely/impossibly expensive
Similar to the common English expression "costs an arm and a leg".
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Re: What's a fun idiom that you've learned recently?
rouler à tombeau overt > drive to an open tomb > drive recklessly fast
https://www.expressio.fr/expressions/a-tombeau-ouvert
EDIT
or perhaps that should be "drive with your tomb open"?
Cette expression qui date de la fin du XVIIIe siècle s'utilise après des verbes indiquant le déplacement comme galoper (à l'époque), rouler, aller...
Elle doit être comprise au sens littéral des termes : celui qui roule à tombeau ouvert va si vite qu'il y risque sa vie et qu'il va probablement et volontairement terminer sa course directement dans le tombeau qui l'attend grand ouvert.
https://www.expressio.fr/expressions/a-tombeau-ouvert
EDIT
Last edited by DaveAgain on Sun Feb 04, 2024 9:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What's a fun idiom that you've learned recently?
Not sure if what's technically a single compound word counts as an idiom, but apparently one of the words for "pregnant" in Kazakh is екіқабат, which literally means "two-storeyed".
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Re: What's a fun idiom that you've learned recently?
My favorite Hindi idiom so far has been "तारे तोड़ लाना" (taare tod laana). This translates to "break the stars" (or the more poetic version that I prefer, "shatter the stars"), and it means to attempt or accomplish a difficult task; to perform a miracle. Equivalent English idioms might be "walk on water" or "move mountains." (I'm now noticing the alliteration in all of these idioms in both languages...)
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