Category: Words and phrases

As pretty as a truck

By Simon

Un beau camion

An interesting French expression I learnt last week is beau comme un camion, which literally means “pretty as a truck/lorry”, and actually means pretty, cute or beautiful.

Apparently this idiom appeared around the middle of the 20th century and was at first ironic, as few people find trucks pretty. However it came to mean graceful and beautiful, and the use of the word camion (truck/lorry) emphasizes the importance of the word beau (pretty, beautiful) [source].

Here are some equivalents of this phrase in other languages:

English
– pretty as a picture
– easy on the eye(s)
– cute as a button

Spanish
– estar como un tren = to be like a train

Flemish
– een lust voor het oog = a pleasure for the eye

Dutch
– een ‘stoot’ zijn = a punch in the gob
– zo mooi als een madonna / plaatje = pretty like a madona/picture
– als een vlag op een modderschuit = like a flag on a barge filled with mud
– beeldschoon = pretty as a picture
– een plaatje = a photo

Romanian
– a fi rupt din soare = to be detached from the sun

Serbian
– lep k’o slika = pretty as a picture

Swedish
– vacker som en dag = pretty as a day

From: http://www.expressio.fr/expressions/beau-comme-un-camion.php

What about in your language(s)?

Take the frog and run!

By Simon

Tirelire grenouille

Yesterday I came across the interesting French word grenouiller, which literally means “to frog” and actually means “to indulge in shady dealings”, and seems to refer specifically to political intrigues, according to Le Dictionnaire.

A related expression is manger / bouffer la grenouille (literally, “to eat the frog”) = to scoop the till; to clean out the till; to take the money and run

According to Expressio.fr until the 18th century French piggy banks (les cochon tirelires / les tirelires cochon) were usually in the shape of frogs (grenouilles), rather than pigs (cochons), and the word grenouille came to be associated with money that had been set aside by a group or association. So manager la grenouille came to mean taking that money.

An alternative explanation from the same source is that manger is a synonym for croquer, which means to crunch or munch, and also means to squander an inheritance or sum of money. The grenouille in this expression comes from the slang term grenouiller, which was used until the 19th century, meaning to carouse in taverns, and to spend ill-gotten gains.

Is grenouiller still used? If not, are there alternative expressions meaning the same thing?

Little donkey bridges

By Simon

Ezelsbruggetje

I learnt an interesting word in Dutch today – ezelsbruggetje (“little donkey bridge”), which means a mnemonic, which associates words and other things you want to remember with images.

A number of possible origins for this word are given on ezelsbrug.nl, my favourite of which is that when donkeys were commonly used in the countryside they would go across gaps and ditches on temporary plank bridges, as they fear water, but not heights, and would thus take a short cut to their destination. The meaning then came to apply to memory tricks that give you a short cut to memorising things.

Do mnemonics have interesting names in other languages? Can you remember?

Here’s a tune I wrote called The Dancing Donkeys / Asynnod sy’n Dawnsio:

Quatschen

By Simon

I came across an interesting German word today – quatschen – which means to gab; to piffle; to talk rubbish; to chew the fat; to shoot the breeze; to blab; to yak; to squelch; to squidge [source].

It appears in a blog post in the sentence:

Aber da fragt auf dem Gathering auch niemand mehr, ob Esperanto ok ist, da wird einfach losgequatscht.

This means something like “But at the Gathering nobody asks any more if Esperanto is OK, they simply start yakking in it.” The Gathering in question was the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin, which I went to last week, and the post is about the languages most commonly used there. It mentions that apart from English, many people there spoke German, French, Spanish, Italian and/or Portuguese, and Esperanto, and that we switched between them frequently. This was certainly my experience – those were the most commonly-spoken languages there. I also met quite a few speakers and learners of Welsh, Dutch and Mandarin.

The related word (der) Quatsch means nonsense or rubbish, and the LEO dictionary gives a long list of English synonyms for this word:

folderol/falderol/falderal; balderdash; blah; blatherskite; flubdub; jabberwocky; malarkey; nonsense; nuts; punk; rubbish; taradiddle/tarradiddle; tommyrot/tommy-rot; guff; hoke; poppycock

I’ve come across some of these before, but not blatherskite, hoke, taradiddle, tommyrot or flubdub, and I haven’t heard punk used in this sense. According to the Oxford Dictionaries, a blatherskite is “a person who talks at great length without making much sense.”, and is referred to as a Quatschkopf in German, and a taradiddle is a petty lie.

There are also some related quatschian expressions:

– Quatsch! = My chin! Balls! That’s all my eye and Betty Martin.
– So ein Quatsch! = My eye! My foot!
– Das ist Quatsch! = That’s hokey!
– Mach keinen Quatsch! = Don’t be silly!
– Red keinen Quatsch! = Don’t talk nonsense!
– So ‘n Quatsch! = My ass!

Jacob’s join

By Simon

Yesterday I discovered a term for a potluck meal (one at which each guest contributes some food or drink) which I hadn’t heard before – Jacob’s join. My mum used it, and told me that it’s commonly used in Lancashire, where she lives. I don’t remember hearing this when I was growing up there, but then we didn’t go to many such meals.

According to World Wide Words, this term is used in and around Lancashire (in the north west of England), however nobody knows where it comes from. It might have some connection to Jacob in the bible.

Other ways to refer to a Jacob’s join apparently include potluck dinner, spread, Jacob’s supper, faith supper, covered dish supper, dish party, bring and share, dutch, pitch-in, bring-a-plate, dish-to-pass, fuddle [source]. I haven’t heard of many of these before. Have you?

Does this tradition exist in your country/area?

If so, what do you call it?

Blue eyes and black butter

By Simon

I discovered today that the French equivalent of a black eye is un œil au beurre noir (a black butter eye). It is also known as un œil poché au beurre noir (an eye poached in black butter) or un cocard (a rosette or lesion).

According to L’Internaute.com, the expressions containing beurre noir date from the 19th century, and the butter in question was butter used when poaching eggs which coloured the egg white. The egg yolk was compared to the eye, and the darkened white to the discolouring of a black eye.

In German the equivalent is ein blaues Auge (a blue eye), and in Spanish it’s un ojo morado (a purple/bruised eye).

Are there other ways to refer to this in other languages?

By the way, I don’t remember way the conversation came round to black eyes last night, but none of us have them.

Closing out

By Simon

In the Czech lessons I’ve been working my way through I’ve noticed that the Czech host says (in English) at the end of each lesson “To close out this lesson, we would like to practise what you have just learnt.”. I would say finish rather than close out, and thought close out was a non-native usage. However recently I heard American friends using the same expression, so it seems that it is used in American English.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to close out is defined as:

– exclude; preclude

So it does exist as an expression, but the meaning doesn’t quite fit with finishing a lesson.

Do you use or have you heard this expression?

Carrying coals to Newcastle

By Simon

An idiomatic way to say a task is pointless is to say it’s like carrying coals to Newcastle – Newcastle, in the north east of England, used to be a major coal mining area.

In French the equivalent is porter de l’eau à la rivière (to carry water to the river).

In German they say Eulen nach Athen bringen/tragen (to take/bring owls to Athens).

In Welsh there are quite a few equivalent expressions:

– cario glo i Fflint = to carry coal to Flint (a former coal mining area)
– cario dŵr dros afon = to carry water across a river
– bwrw heli yn y môr = to throw salt in the sea
– iro blonegen = to grease fat
– iro hwch â bloneg = to grease a sow with fat
– gwerthu mêl i berchen gwenyn = to sell honey to a bee keeper
– mynd i ‘ngheg i chwilio am fy nhafod = to go to my mouth and look for my tongue
– gyrru halen i’r Heledd = to send salt to a salt pit
– golchi traed alarch = to wash a swan’s feet
– taflu ‘fale i’r berllan = to throw apples into an orchard

What about in other languages?

Llap y dwndwr – the drink of prattle

By Simon

Llap y dwndwr / Panad / Disgled

I discovered last night that an old Welsh expression for tea is llap y dwndwr [ɬap ə ˈdʊndʊr], which could be translated as meaning “the drink that makes one talkative” or “the drink of chatter”. It is also the name of a tune.

The word llap means soft and wet, and appears in the expression bwyd llap (soft and wet food), which can refer to soup (cawl) or rice pudding (bwdin reis).

The word dwndwr means noise; to make a noise; to bluster, prattle or babble; or to daunt, hector or bully. A related word is dwndrio = to babble or talk too much. It appears in the expressions cap y dwndwr = rattlepate (a frivolous, talkative person), and rhap y dwndwr = a gossip, or loud-mouthed person.

Other poetic/slang names for tea include dail y dwndwr (“the leaves of chatter”) and llysiau’r dwndwr (“the herbs of chatter”).

In colloquial Welsh tea is te [tɛ] and a cup of tea is panad or paned in North Wales – this comes from cwpaned o de (cup of tea), and it’s disgled (o de) in South Wales.

Does tea have any interesting names in other languages?

Source: Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru

Mardy

By Simon

The word mardy came up in conversation last night, and the friends who mentioned it, who are from Yorkshire and Lancashire, said that it could mean annoying or weak. As I hadn’t heard it before, I thought I’d find out more about it.

According to Wiktionary means sulky or whinning, e.g. ‘She’s being a mardy girl’, or non-co-operative, bad tempered or terse. It is used in the East Midlands, South Yorkshire and a few other places in northern England, as well as in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottingham and Derbyshire.

It is often combined with other words such as cow and bugger, and is sometimes shortened to mard, which appears in the phrase, ‘he’s got a mard on’ (he’s in a bad mood), which could also be ‘he’s in a mardy’.

It possibly comes from marred = to be perplexed or troubled; to be spoilt, cosseted, overly indulged, and a related expression is to mard = to cosset (a child).

Have you heard this word before?

Do you use it?