It has been said that you don’t really speak English properly until you have a masterful command of idiom. You have to appreciate that “you pays your money, you takes your choice” has a close, but different, meaning to “you’ve made your bed, now you must lie in it”.
We love our idioms. Indeed, in our insular way (because English-speakers often are, let’s admit it), many think other languages don’t have such rich figures of speech.
But they do, and they are every bit as strange as ours. A German might say: “you have tomatoes on your eyes”. It means you’re not seeing what everyone else is seeing. In Portuguese, “to push it with your belly” means to keep postponing an important job. “It’s a cat’s forehead”, in Japanese, is a humble way to say the amount of land you own isn’t big.
In Thai, “One afternoon in your next reincarnation” says it is never going to happen.
In Latvian, “to blow little ducks” means to talk nonsense or lie. In French, “the carrots are cooked” means the situation can’t be changed. In Russian, “the thief has a burning hat” tells of a person with an uneasy conscience that betrays itself.
In Dutch, if you “do it with the French whiplash” it means hurriedly and haphazardly. In Norwegian, declaring “there’s an owl in the bog” shows you are suspicious about something.
The deep-thinking Chinese say: “the root of the lotus may break, but the silken threads remain connected”. It means lovers may retain feelings long after their relationship is over. Also in Chinese, “to emit smoke from seven orifices” means you are very angry.
Since hearing this, I have been counting my orifices. Does the nose count as one or two?
I’ve always thought our idioms “the bee’s knees” is an odd saying. As is “Bob’s your uncle” and “a different kettle of fish”.
We’re far from alone having odd sayings. In Croatian, “you sing like an elephant farted in your ear” means you aren’t a very good singer. In Icelandic, their version of put your thinking cap on is: “lay your head in water”. The Chinese say “horse horse, tiger tiger” for something that is neither good nor bad.
One of my favourites idioms is from Sweden: “there’s no cow on the ice”. It means there’s no need to panic. If there actually was a coo on a frozen lake I can’t help but imagine the cowherders up to high doh!
Let us end on a nice saying. In Kazakh, “I see the sun on your back” means thank you for being you. I think we should adopt that one.
Word of the week
Nocent (adjective)
Harmful, injurious. “The poor cow, its claws skittering on the thin ice of a frozen lake, was in a potentially nocent situation.”
Read the latest Oh my word! every Saturday in The Courier. Contact me at sfinan@dctmedia.co.uk
