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English idioms

Started by Tom Rad, February 10, 2004, 05:36:28 PM

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Tom Rad

No, that's idioms, silly, as in: 'A form of expression, grammatical construction, phrase, etc., peculiar to a language; a peculiarity of phraseology approved by the usage of a language, and often having a signification other than its grammatical or logical one'. (Thanks, OED!)

Anyway, what I was going to ask was if someone could have a go at explaining the origin of these English expressions:

She looks like butter wouldn't melt (in her mouth)
That this means 'she is innocent-looking' is not at all intuitive. I'm not a native speaker of English, and when I first heard this expression I imagined the woman (it seems that only girls are described in this way, right?) in question was very cold, as in emotionally reserved, dispassionate. Why does being innocent or bereft of lewd thoughts mean that you have a mouth like a refridgerator?

Pull one's finger out
Jesus, this one I find so disturbing. It means 'make a proper effort to get on with doing something', but I can never stop myself wondering where that finger is before it gets pulled out! It's particularly disturbing because it is perfectly acceptable to say this in polite company, so you will get old ladies talking about pulling their finger out and getting on with the washing. That just brings up thoughts I really would rather not have...

Acknowledgements:
This thread was inspired by Peter Andre's musings on "How come you chop a tree down, then you chop it up?" on I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!

monkhouse terror

Quote from: "Tom Rad"Pull one's finger out
...so you will get old ladies talking about pulling their finger out and getting on with the washing. That just brings up thoughts I really would rather not have...

Have you not yet realised how obsessed with arses (or even front arses, with the old ladies) we English are?

*WARNING: shameless plug*

Why, we even have designated areas for that sort of thing



In answer to your questions, I have no idea. I am just as confused about this language as you are.

Oh actually, one that really confused me as a kiddy was when people talked about 'being able to ...[do something]... till the cows came home'. This confusion started when my mum once claimed she could eat something (I've forgotten what) 'till the cows came home' I was quite a nervous child and since I didn't know where these cows were, thought they would just appear in my house when my mum stopped eating. The thought scared the shit out of me.

Smackhead Kangaroo

Are you sure that the butter wouldn't melt one means innocent? I always presumed it meant dispassionate like you also presumed.
let's presume together. no finger pulling mind.

Damn my typing.

fanny splendid

Quote from: "Smackhead Kangaroo"Are you sure that the butter wouldn't melt one means innocent? I always presumed it meant dispassionate like you also presumed.
let's presume together. no finger pulling mind.

Damn my typing.

I have only really heard it in the 'innocent' sense. usually in a description of naughty, but angelic looking kids.

As for the pulling the finger out. Stop picking your nose, scratching your arse, and generally fiddling about, and get on with your (manual labour) type job?

Krang

I got told by the young blonde manageress to pull my finger out when i arrived late to work once.

drew up a great image of me, pulling my finger out my ass, then proceeding to lay out the fresh bread!

then i thought about pulling my finger out of her, which would have been much more fun.... perhaps i should do the "how filthy are you" test.

Funky Gibbon

Wrong thread. Sorry.

Uh... Pull your socks up. Straighten up and fly right. Uh...

gazzyk1ns

Quote from: "Krang"
then i thought about pulling my finger out of her, which would have been much more fun.... perhaps i should do the "how filthy are you" test.

Hehe unless you've tied her up with chains in a public dungeon and eaten her arse out, then you'll not likely score many points.

lordaxil

Sorry if the below sounds pompous, but I find it interesting to look these things up. Especially because a lot of idioms seem to have very different meanings to how they are used (e.g. nitty-gritty is a reference to the slave trade).

Quote from: "Tom Rad"
She looks like butter wouldn't melt (in her mouth)
That this means 'she is innocent-looking' is not at all intuitive.

This phrase has been attributed to Charles Macklin - an Irish writer - in The Man of the World. However, there it is applied to mean someone who is smooth-tongued, meek-looking, over civil, and deceitful, 'Oh she is sly enough; she looks as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.'  I guess the connotations of innocence came about because of the affectation.

Quote from: "Tom Rad"
Pull one's finger out
Jesus, this one I find so disturbing.

Disappointingly, it's a naval reference and comes from the times of the Men'o'War. When the cannons were loaded a small amount of powder was poured into the ignition hole near the base of the weapon. In order to keep the powder secure before firing, a crew member pushed one of their fingers into the hole. When the time came for ignition, the crewman was told to pull his finger out.

Cheese Arse H Christ

I'd love to know where "Know your onions" comes from

mook

Quote from: "Cheese Arse H Christ"I'd love to know where "Know your onions" comes from

That, as far as I remember harks back to when tulips were mightily prised by the wealthy of Amsterdam and other such flatland gaffs. Tulips, apparently in their tubular form are very similar to onions. Hence the confusion. I could go on, but to be honest I'm a bit pissed.

Edit to add....

I always thought "Pull your finger out", was something to do with knot tying? Have I been lied to all these years? Fucking parents.

Gazeuse

Quote from: "lordaxil"Bits
You're not as green as you're cabbage looking,are yer?!?

splattermac

another well known naval one is

freeze the balls off a brass monkey

a brass monkey being a metal triangle for holding cannonballs in one place, its a cold day, the metal contracts, the balls don't fit so well and roll out.

Ambient Sheep

Idioms in other languages fascinate me.

For example, the German equivalent of "He's not my cup of tea" is "He's not my collar size", and I believe the Finnish equivalent of "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched" is "Don't skin your bears before they are dead".  (Which sounds more like a general safety warning than a caution against presumption!)

monkhouse terror

Quote from: "splattermac"freeze the balls off a brass monkey

Rich Hall in his fishing show did a great scene of him finding that one out.

splattermac

The French (so I was told by a Luxembourger) have a saying for heavy rain meaning 'it's raining strings' which I thought was pretty.

Its something like (phonetically of course)  eel plur de cord

feel free to ruin this memory for me

morgs

Bollocks.

I had a great book of idioms that I was given by a deperate relative a couple of Christmasses back... but I can't find it.  And I was going to use it to show off as well.

Doesn't that just take the biscuit?

Cheese Arse H Christ

Our 'bull in a china shop' turns into an elephant when you go to Germany

Smackhead Kangaroo

No it doesn't just make one up. preferably a traditional naval one.

par example-

The well known naval saying

It doesn't fit gubbins when the sun shines on broccoli.

Derives form when sea faring folk (the gypsy type) would, during courting fit a ritual noose round their heads ( the so called gubbins). Of course wooing would only happen on a fair weathered day. It's disputed where the broccoli comes into it, but I remember eading somewhere that  people who live at sea romanticised things they'ed never seen like broccoli, thus making it fitting for a pre marital serenade.

Cheese Arse H Christ

Quote from: "Smackhead Kangaroo"No it doesn't.


Yes it does http://www.dict.cc/?s=Elefant

English   - Deutsch
elephant    Elefant {m}
bull in a china shop =   Elefant im Porzellanladen
dance like an elephant = wie ein Elefant tanzen
like a bull in a china shop = wie ein Elefant im Porzellanladen

splattermac

can I just get away with some tangential word play?

the abecedarian insult

Quote"Sir, you are an apogenous, bovaristic, coprolalial, dasypygal, excerebrose, facinorous, gnathonic, hircine, ithyphallic, jumentous, kyphotic, labrose, mephitic, napiform, oligophrenial, papuliferous, quisquilian, rebarbative, saponaceous, thersitical, unguinous, ventripotent, wlatsome, xylocephalous, yirning zoophyte."

Translation
Quote"Sir, you are an impotent, conceited, obscene, hairy-buttocked, brainless, wicked, toadying, goatish, indecent, stable-smelling, hunchbacked, thick-lipped, stinking, turnip-shaped, feeble-minded, pimply, trashy, repellant, smarmy, foul-mouthed, greasy, gluttonous, loathsome, wooden-headed, whining, extremely low form of animal life."

A clever palindrome from the time of the panama canal,

A man, a plan, a canal – panama

Smackhead Kangaroo

Quote from: "Cheese Arse H Christ"
Quote from: "Smackhead Kangaroo"No it doesn't.


Yes it does http://www.dict.cc/?s=Elefant

English   - Deutsch
elephant    Elefant {m}
bull in a china shop =   Elefant im Porzellanladen
dance like an elephant = wie ein Elefant tanzen
like a bull in a china shop = wie ein Elefant im Porzellanladen


Take the biscuit is what I was referring to, but you had the impudence to post in the intervening gap. You didn't even lay your jacket down so I could walk over.
the special VW idiom for this situation is-
cunt

ALthough on a serious note, you haven't explained there why dancing becomes involved nor why elephant is bull. I presume then that you're  not actually giving actual equivalents and youre talking aobut some sort of equivalent phrase.

elderford

I think it's French, something to do with replying to someone who is wishing their life away and it goes something like:

Digging your own grave with your teeth.

glitch

The French equivalent to window-shopping is "faire du leche vitrines" - translates literally as "to lick windows"

Morrisfan82

This is just my take on it, but I've always thought that the 'butter wouldn't melt in her mouth' thing was a reference to the fact that said girly is SO innocent that she would even be incapable of corrupting even an easily-meltable substance like butter from its solid state.

And 'pull your finger out' I've always taken to mean 'pull your finger out of your arse' anyway. Stop being so self-absorbed (ie. wanking), and free your hands up to go about getting some work done.

Splat, that Panama palindrome is the bollocks. Palindromes give me a bit of a hard-on for some reason. 'Redivider' is the longest palindromic word in English apparently, though I have a feeling someone's gonna prove that to be rubbish now I've said that...

There's an old story about a romantic young French/Italian man who tries to woo an attractive English girl by telling her:

"When I look at you, time stands still."

However, his grasp of the lingo being slightly askew, he actually cooed:

"Your face would stop a clock."

Also, I'm told that if you translate 'out of sight, out of mind' into Japanese, and then back to English, it re-emerges as 'invisible idiot'.

Great thread btw Tom :)

Bogey

If France you're a "poisson d'Avril", an April fish - rather than fool.
Pretty weak, that, sorry.

Tom Rad

Quote from: "Ambient Sheep"Idioms in other languages fascinate me.

For example, the German equivalent of "He's not my cup of tea" is "He's not my collar size", and I believe the Finnish equivalent of "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched" is "Don't skin your bears before they are dead".  (Which sounds more like a general safety warning than a caution against presumption!)

Yeap, Älä nylje karhua ennen kaatamista, 'Don't skin the bear before you have felled it' is indeed the expression for not rushing ahead of yourself. But it's of course a good piece of advice to bear in mind. No pun intended.

zozman

Quote from: "elderford"
Digging your own grave with your teeth.

I thought that means that what you eat, affects your health.  If you eat a load of shite, you'll probably die before long.....

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: "Tom Rad"Yeap, Älä nylje karhua ennen kaatamista, 'Don't skin the bear before you have felled it' is indeed the expression for not rushing ahead of yourself. But it's of course a good piece of advice to bear in mind. No pun intended.
Oh good...I was told it many years ago by a Finnish coworker (one of many).  He was originally from Ivalo, he was using it as an example to point out good-humouredly how "we Finns are closer to nature than you are!".  I didn't *think* he was joking about the idiom, but thought I'd put the "I believe" in my original post to cover my arse (another idiom there!) in case he was just winding me up (and another...).

Any other good Finnish idioms we should be aware of?

butnut

Quote from: "Ambient Sheep"
Oh good...I was told it many years ago by a Finnish coworker (one of many).  

I read that as cow-worker - which certainly threw-up some interesting images...

mook

Quote from: "butnut"
Quote from: "Ambient Sheep"
Oh good...I was told it many years ago by a Finnish coworker (one of many).  

I read that as cow-worker - which certainly threw-up some interesting images...

Me too. Although that might help to explain Sheepy's very high score on the filth test.