Swedish idioms
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You read his post like the devil reads the bible.
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It would be 'trumpeted' here. I like bassooned much better though.
+1 here
I got pulled by the nose by the scammer.
Yup, have that one.
He's missing some salt in his head.
Running away like the devil from incense.
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The courier left the package outside the man's apartment, but when the man got home it had already grown feet.
The used car salesman brought him behind the light.
He was old in the yard at his workplace.
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He's missing some salt in his head.
We have something similar: he's missing a fifth stave.The courier left the package outside the man's apartment, but when the man got home it had already grown feet.
We have a version with wings.
He stares like a calf at painted door.
Non-saints make pots.
The turkey was thinking about Sunday, but on Saturday they cut his head off.
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The turkey was thinking about Sunday, but on Saturday they cut his head off
When would you use this?
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Swedes use that about as often as feet, really.
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Goods of questionable origins may have fallen off a truck.
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@Gaska said:
The turkey was thinking about Sunday, but on Saturday they cut his head off
When would you use this?
When someone makes plans about what to do after something happens, where the chance of this something happening the way he hopes for is rather slim. Similar to "don't divide the skin on a bear".
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We'd say "Don't sell the hide before the bear has been shot"
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That's so much cooler than don't count your chickens before they hatch
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How about "counting on the egg inside the chicken's ass"?
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That one turns up in English as "a pig in a poke". Which appears to make very little sense until you realize that "poke" is an archaic word meaning bag or sack, derived from the same root as "pocket" and "pouch".
Or "pussy" for that matter :p
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"Falling between the dock and the ship"
By the way, has anyone else noticed google translate is getting pretty good at expressions like these nowadays? Long as you catch them in the original language of course.
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It means of course that you got flu and a soar throat.
I thought it meant "...And these nice gentlemen would like to have a few words with Mr. Assange, but he is nowhere to be found."
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The courier left the package outside the man's apartment, but when the man got home it had already grown feet.
"grown feet/legs" is a common idiom in the parts of the English-speaking world of which I am familiar.
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@PleegWat said:
"Falling between the dock and the ship"
What does that mean?Frequently used when procedures change (eg. a new law applies) when a situation is handled by neither the old nor the new rules. Dutch original is "Tussen de wal en het schip raken"
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To fall between chairs.
I did not like the tone of the forum, but I guess I just have to take the spoon in a pretty hand.
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By the way, has anyone else noticed google translate is getting pretty good at expressions like these nowadays? Long as you catch them in the original language of course.
Yup, that's really a great benefit of being able to throw massive amounts of text at a machine learning algorithm. While the expression is rare, it's likely to be translated exactly the same every time.Not that they could ever parse shit my wife says. We speak four different languages around the house in varying amounts and it wouldn't be the first time I got to hear a Spanish expression rendered in a mixture of German and English or something like that ...
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We'd say "Don't sell the hide before the bear has been shot"
In Polish: "There's no use in dividing the hide while it's on the bear."
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Practicing what? Repeating what's already beena said?
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Hah. Meey-a woosh'd-a myself-a. Didn't read-a the thread-a close-a enough-a.
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@Mikael_Svahnberg said:
pig in the sack
Buying something that turns out to be not what you wanted to buy?
If so, it's "cat in the bag" here.
While "pig in a poke" (aka buying something sight unseen) and "let the cat out of the bag" (aka revealing the surprise) are related idioms, they're not the same.
There's also one more related idiom to those two (likely also dealing with cats) but I can't remember what it was and Google isn't helping me remember it.
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I think the pig in the poke focuses on the buyer's intention, whereas the cat in the sack refers to the cynical buyer's expectations.
Letting the cat out of the sack is unrelated, agreed.
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There's also one more related idiom to those two (likely also dealing with cats) but I can't remember what it was and Google isn't helping me remember it.
Over here there's "buying/selling a cat for a hare".There's a Wikipedia article on Pig in a Poke, btw.
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He stares like a calf at painted door.
+1
Similarly: stares like a chick at a worm
Oh, which reminds me: local version of "when pigs fly" is "when grapes grow on a willow".
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Johan was summoned to the manager's office. He'd really stepped in the accordion this time!
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I'll have to correct you on that one. He stepped in the piano, not the accordion.
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Or shall we have to go out and pee in a cross?
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Hmm. Takes more to step in a piano, certainly, but I guess that fits with how it's supposed to illustrate a truly impressive level of ineptitude. I'd associated it with 'handklaver' which is rather easier to step in, at least if it's sitting on the floor.
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When would you use this?
That sounds like of like 'don't count your chickens before they're hatched'.
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"buying/selling a cat for a hare".
Tangentially, we have "to sell an axe for a stick" for a disadvantageous exchange.
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But only for the uncle.
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You must be one of these elusive users that can't be @kt_ @mentioned......
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Yup, we're the unmentionables. BEWARE!!!
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Who knows how a cow catches a hare.
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The saying is specifically about an uncle. "Zamienił stryjek siekierkę na kijek".
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The saying is specifically about an uncle.
And only the father's side uncle, too!
It's pretty okay to use it as an idiom and not as a saying too, though.
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There's a Wikipedia article on Pig in a Poke, btw.
The cat variant appears to be most common. And our hare variant seems to be unique.
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You are trying to pull a fast one on me, but I know my Pappenheimers
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He stares like a calf at painted door.
Our calves stare at new gates instead.
Also stare like a ploughed up mouse.
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He had nothing on his feet when he made his claim.
The used car salesman did not have clean flour in the bag.
He didn't spit in the glass at the party.
He jumped into a crazy barrel.
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