Fun Stuff > CHATTER
Literal Idioms
LTK:
Oh, I have a ton of these from Dutch. We have...
* "The monkey comes out of the sleeve", which means that a revelation has been made, like a magician's trick being revealed to be done by a monkey in his sleeve.
* "Make that the cat wise!" which is said in response to something unbelievable.
* "Bean comes around its salary", what goes around comes around. (It rhymes in Dutch.)
* "This hits like tongs on a pig", which means it's completely irrelevant or nonsensical.
* "Stabbing the dragon with something", which means taking the piss out of something.
* "Drilling someone something through the nose", which means taking away an opportunity for someone to get something, like badmouthing them to an employer before a job interview.
* "Having an apple to peel with someone", having unfinished business of the unpleasant kind.
* "Getting a cookie of your own dough", getting a taste of your own medicine.
* "Kicking in an open door", stating the obvious.
* "Snapping an owlet", taking a nap.
* "Feeling it on your clogs", obvious in hindsight.
* "Feeling someone on the teeth", interrogating someone.
* "Tying the cat to the bacon", creating a situation of irresistible temptation.
* "Falling with the door into the house", getting straight to the point.
* "Standing with your mouth full of teeth", being dumbfounded.
* "Eating with long teeth", eating something distasteful, reluctantly.
* "Walking next to your shoes", being full of yourself.
* "Helping someone to soap", killing someone.
* "Taking old cows out of the water", bringing up old grudges.
* "Talking of cows and calves", making small-talk.
* "Being washed out of the clumps (of dirt)", being big and bulky.
* "Playing for bacon and beans", playing without stakes.
* "On that bicycle!" - I get it!
* "Sand over it", no hard feelings.
* "The quarter drops", someone finally makes sense of, or understands something.
* "For the cat's violin", or "For John Dick", or more politely, "For John with the short last name", meaning pointlessly.
cybersmurf:
--- Quote from: Case on 04 Sep 2018, 11:35 ---
* "Er weiss wo der Bartel den Most holt" - "He knows which side his bread is buttered on"
--- End quote ---
literally: he knows where Bartholomew gets the cider from
Case:
--- Quote from: LTK on 04 Sep 2018, 11:45 ---Oh, I have a ton of these from Dutch. We have...
--- End quote ---
Some of those idioms are common in German, too:
* "Jemandem auf den Zahn fühlen" - "Feeling someone on the teeth" - interrogating someone.
* "Mit der Tür ins Haus fallen" - "Falling with the door into the house" - getting straight to the point.
* "Lange Zähne mache" - "Eating with long teeth" - eating something distasteful, reluctantly.
* "Der Groschen fällt" - "The quarter drops" - someone finally makes sense of, or understands something.
Others have 'relatives' over here
"Having an apple to peel with someone", having unfinished business of the unpleasant kind. -> We'd say "Having a chicken to pluck with someone"
I love "Tying the cat to the bacon" ... :-D
LTK:
Yeah, there are a ton that we have in common with English too, like finding a needle in a haystack, hanging by a thread, grabbing the bull by the horns, the walls have ears, dotting the i's, hitting the nail on the head, etcetera.
Cornelius:
--- Quote from: LTK on 04 Sep 2018, 11:45 ---
* "For the cat's violin".
--- End quote ---
Don't think I've heard that one before. Giving someone under their fiddle/ box/feet, yes. Probably related, I assume.
--- Quote from: Case on 04 Sep 2018, 11:35 ---
Uhmmmh - could you translate their meaning, too? Some of those seem related to German idioms:
* "Die heisse Kartoffel weitergeben" (lit. 'To pass on the hot potatoe') means "to deflect blame for an embarrassing failure onto someone else"
* "Er weiss wo der Bartel den Most holt" (lit. 'he knows where Bartholomew gets the cider from') "He knows which side his bread is buttered on"
* "Die Platte putzen" (lit. 'polishing the plate') means "Getting the hell out of Dodge"
but others are utterly foreign.
Edit: Hat-tip to cybersmurf
--- End quote ---
Those would be the same.
Its butter on the gallows; it's in vain, useless. Why waste good butter by smearing it on the gallows?
There's a little adder under the grass: superficially it looks good, but danger lurks beneath. Or commonly, there's catch.
Talk like Bridgeman: talk very well, very convincingly. Brugman must have been a very good orator; most people assume he was a lawyer.
Work for the king: work gratis, without getting anything in return. Also as " it's all for the king"; it's all for nought, it's no good. This one might be bit more regional.
To give give the pipe to Martin, to break one's pipe; to die. Possibly connected with St Martin? I don't know. That a smoking pipe, by the way.
There's lot of expressions in common, actually.
Oh, and rather than an apple or a chicken, it's an egg, over here.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version