The foreign idioms game

[Rolig Loon]

@Orwar One Swedish phrase I like is "Bränt barn skyr elden,"  which is  "A burnt child avoids the fire." In English, we would say something like "Once burned, twice shy." 

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

    "Daar kan ik geen chocola van maken."

    "I can't make chocolate with that."

    That's completely unintelligible.

And this is probably one of my all-time favorites:

    "Daar komt de aap uit de mouw."

    "There comes the monkey out of the sleeve."

    Finally, the truth comes out.

One Flemish expression I found...

Now, Flemish is just Dutch with a softer-sounding, less guttural enunciation. But those silly Belgians have a few extra words in their vocabulary that I can't make chocolate with. For instance: what the hell is a 'kemel'? And why would you shoot one in order to enjoy life? (Image below)

 

Edited July 1, 2021 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[Rolig Loon]

Having just used the expression in a different thread, I'll share another odd phrase from English:

"That's a whole nother ball of wax."

Meaning roughly: "That [issue] involves completely different factors"

Why a ball of wax? According to Wikipedia, which never lies, it comes from a 17th century "English legal practice whereby land was divided among heirs by covering scraps of paper representing portions of land with wax, rolling each into a ball, and drawing the balls from a hat."  It just odd enough to be believable, although nobody uses balls of wax these days.

As an aside, notice that the phrase plays a common colloquial trick of jamming one word ("whole") inside a different one ("another") for emphasis. I have no idea why we do that. 

[Prokofy Neva]

Вам медведь на ухо наступил! 

A bear stepped on your ear!

(You are tone deaf).

[ChinRey]

I'll do one the other way round, an English idiom that makes no sense in my native language:

"Between the Devil and the deep blue sea".

We know what it's supposed to mean of course but it is not possible for a Norwegian mind to associate "the deep blue" sea with something bad.

[Rolig Loon]

41 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

"Between the Devil and the deep blue sea".

We know what it's supposed to mean of course but it is not possible for a Norwegian mind to associate "the deep blue" sea with something bad.

Oh, I suspect more than one of your whaling ancestors was cursed by having to decide between drowning and being eaten by a shark, neither of which sounds very appealing.   I'm not sure how many people would be using that phrase today if it hadn't been used as a popular song title back in the 1930s.

[ChinRey]

12 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Oh, I suspect more than one of your whaling ancestors was cursed by having to decide between drowning and being eaten by a shark

Why choose when you can have both?

[Rolig Loon]

1 minute ago, ChinRey said:

Why choose when you can have both?

And probably will.   Good point.  😈 🦈

[Krystina Ferraris]

In Ireland, when someone consistently talks loads of crap, we say that person is a “gobs h i t e” 😂

There must be a pattern though, saying something silly once or twice a month a gobs h i t e does not make (says Yoda) 👽

Edited July 2, 2021 by Krystina Ferraris
Didn’t know gob s h i t e was a censored word?

[Krystina Ferraris]

Another one we say over here is “as useful as   t i t s  on a bull”.
That’s said in reference to someone not being very helpful or doing something of very little value in a particular context.
Over here vets (large animal ones in particular) are notorious for their foul mouth, so I apologise in advance if that offends anyone 🙈🐮

[Orwar]

34 minutes ago, Krystina Ferraris said:

In Ireland, when someone consistently talks loads of crap, we say that person is a “gobs h i t e” 😂

   That word always reminds me of this guy. 

   "How did that gobsh*te get on the television?!"

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

"Ben je helemaal een haartje betoeterd?!?"

"Has your hair been blown wholesomely with a horn?"

Have you gone utterly mental?

 

"Vechten tegen de bierkaai"

"Fighting the beer quay"

Trying to achieve the impossible

 

I imagine that in the old days the ports and harbors had different factions of workers. Depending on the types of merchandise they had to haul from the ships into the warehouses, such factions were more or less notorious. One would assume that the guys from the pillows and feathers quay weren't as feisty as the guys from the beer quay. And on their nights off in the pubs, one would not want to start a fight with the guys from the beer quay.

[Krystina Ferraris]

7 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   That word always reminds me of this guy. 

   "How did that gobsh*te get on the television?!"

Hahaha Father Jack 😂 what a great show, I still laugh 30 years or so on!! 
That was surely one of his iconic phrases (I won’t mention some of the other words/phrases as he wasn’t a PC character) 😂😂

Edited July 2, 2021 by Krystina Ferraris

[Garnet Psaltery]

A Yorkshire saying I used to hear quite a lot was "You daft a'porth" though not generally addressed to me.  It means someone is lacking in common sense and worth about as much as a halfpenny.

[Krystina Ferraris]

9 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

"Ben je helemaal een haartje betoeterd?!?"

"Has your hair been blown wholesomely with a horn?"

Have you gone utterly mental?

This is absolutely brilliant, I actually have a mental picture of this… I’m laughing here, yes I am easily amused 😂
 

 

[Rat Luv]

6 hours ago, Krystina Ferraris said:

In Ireland, when someone consistently talks loads of crap, we say that person is a “gobs h i t e”

 

I've heard another one from Irish relatives - "sh1t hawk" 🤣

And "girleen" ("brateen" if you're behaving badly)

@Maryanne Solo "scallywag" is great 🙂

[Krystina Ferraris]

24 minutes ago, Rat Luv said:

I've heard another one from Irish relatives - "sh1t hawk" 🤣

And "girleen" ("brateen" if you're behaving badly)

@Maryanne Solo "scallywag" is great 🙂

Hahaha s1thawk is great 😂

never heard the other two I must admit but there are so many local words it’s impossible to know them all😂

[Ted McGregor]

On 7/1/2021 at 8:39 AM, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

Now, Flemish is just Dutch with a softer-sounding, less guttural enunciation.

Leck mich der Söck, Kiëskop. Hau aaf mit ding Quatsch.

[Rolig Loon]

Maybe some kind German speaker can explain why "Hau ab!" means "Get lost!"   It was one of the first useful phrases I learned in German, but I've never understood where it comes from.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

3 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

Maybe some kind German speaker can explain why "Hau ab!" means "Get lost!" 

'Hau ab' is High German, I believe ('hold up', or more properly, 'keep off'/'Stay away', meaning 'get lost' indeed). 'Hau aaf', however, seems pretty Limburgish (specifically, the Oostelijke Mijnstreek / Eastern Mining District variant) to me.

Edited July 2, 2021 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[Sid Nagy]

Abhauen is a German verb. It has more than one meaning:
1. cut off   einen Ast abhauen   to cut of a branch
2. to spitt  Er ist von zu Hause abgehauen  he ran away from home
3. clear off  The way Rolig is using it. Sie sagte zu Ihm er soll abhauen  She said to him to clear off.

And yes, Hau aaf  from the south of the NL is definitely related.
 

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

13 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

cut off   einen Ast abhauen   to cut of a branch

So hau would be a cognate of hew in English and houw in Dutch. Making a sweeping motion with a sharp blade to sever something.

[Rolig Loon]

1 hour ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

So hau would be a cognate of hew in English and houw in Dutch. Making a sweeping motion with a sharp blade to sever something.

Indeed.  Now that I have taken the time to look through my trusty 1889 Century Dictionary, which is an excellent etymological source, I find that the English word "hew" is related to the Old Saxon "hedwan" and Old Dutch "houwen". It also evolved to Middle High German "houwen" and eventually to modern German "hauen" and Danish "hugge".  So, we're all cutting things off.  Thanks!

[Orwar]

34 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

So, we're all cutting things off.  Thanks!

   And 'hugg/hugga/högg' in Swedish.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

Related to 'abgehaut' (buggered off) is this Dutch expression:

"Hij koos het hazenpad."

"He chose the hare's path."

He fled.

40 minutes ago, Orwar said:

And 'hugg/hugga/högg' in Swedish.

Like Wodan's (Odin's) ravens, Huggies and Kissies.  

Edited July 3, 2021 by Arduenn Schwartzman