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Stand-offish means to not really tackle something, to be hands off and is not at all related to being aggressive, in-your-face or potentially violent as would be implied by a stand-off. Also, a whole bunch of Scottish phrases likely came from the Vikings.
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Mar 14, 2020 07:21
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| # ¿ May 18, 2024 09:06 |
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Alhazred posted:My favorite weird scandinavain idiom is "there's owls in the moss", which means that something is shady (or "muffens" as a Norwegian would say it). Turns out that the original expression was "there's wolves in the marsh" which makes more sense. In Sweden it's 'there's a dog buried here'.
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Mar 16, 2020 11:04
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Alhazred posted:We use it in Norway too. But mostly when we point to a specific problem. much like the phrase "the elephant in the room". Ah. Nu jag förstor.
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Mar 17, 2020 08:18
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Alhazred posted:We do have a weird saying for something that's popular though. Instead of saying "selling like hot cakes" we say "selling like chopped poo poo". ... ...why...?
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Mar 23, 2020 13:16
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Eppy-tome
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Nov 4, 2020 11:36
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Something I learned recently - there's a Japanese phrase 'hyōtan kara koma' which literally translates to 'a horse coming out from a gourd', but is used to mean when something unbelievable actually happens. I feel there should be an English phrase for something similar, but my brain isn't cooperating. Oh yeah - the saying that the moon is made from green cheese? The cheese in question is 'green' as in it is immature - it's a fresh (and thus very white) cheese.
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Sep 8, 2022 08:21
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| # ¿ May 18, 2024 09:06 |
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Para inglês ver - Literally Portuguese for 'so the English can see (it)' Metaphorically means something that is done to satisfy another person's requests without actually having done anything. Depressingly, comes from the time period when Britain was cracking down on the Atlantic slave trade, so Portugal passed a whole bunch of laws showing the British that they were complying with their demands... But then doing nothing to enforce said laws.
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Aug 19, 2023 09:32
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