I discovered an interesting French idiom today – prendre la mouche – which means literally ‘to take the fly’ and is the equivalent of ‘to go off in a huff’. Huff refers to ‘a passing mood of anger or pique’ A French equivalent of ‘to be in a huff’ is être vexé. Are there similar expressions in other languages?
La mouche means fly, button or patch comes from the Latin mŭsca (fly)
Here are some other expressions featuring this word:
– bateau-mouche = pleasure boat (on the Seine)
– fine mouche = sharp customer
– oiseau-mouche = hummingbird (‘fly bird’)
– pattes de mouche = spidery scrawl (‘fly paws’)
– poids mouche = flyweight
– papier tue-mouche = flypaper
– mouche du coche = back-seat driver (‘coach fly’)
– mouche à miel = honey bee (‘honey fly’)
– faire mouche = bull’s-eye
Source: http://dictionary.reverso.net/
There’s also a colorful expression, too vulgar to repeat here, which describes engaging in a singularly improbable carnal activity with a fly. It’s roughly equivalent to the English “to nit-pick” or “to split hairs”.
German has ‘die Fliege machen’ (‘to do the fly’), similar in use to English ‘to buzz off’.
Haha, funny… the afore-mentioned French expression also means “to do a fly”…
Spanish “mosquearse” (from “mosca” = “fly”), means:
1 – to shoo flies.
2 – (figuratively) to rid oneself violently of an annoyance;
3 – (by extension) to allow oneself to be bothered by something;
4 – (by extension) to take offence.
In Porto-Alegrense Portuguese, the verb “mosquear” lost its original sense of “to shoo flies”, but its sometimes used meaning “to act like a fly (in the face of a situation)”; that is, “to fail to take action due to distraction”, referring to flies that are easily killed by flyswatters or bug zappers.