Weird-ass Idioms

[zompist]

I'm guessing it's based on the fact that seven is ٧ and 10 is ١٠.

[jal]

Is the choice of numbers based on shape, or symbolism, or...?

Arabic seven: ۷
Arabic ten: ۱۰

Seems quite self-evident, no? :)

EDIT: Damn, ninjad by Zomp :(

JAL

[Qwynegold]

I've read that in Samoa "hey, you liver sizzling of fat" (or something like that) is a huge compliment when said to girls. This is because they value pork a lot, and it's liver was considered the best part. In the old times only the king would get to eat pig liver.

[sirdanilot]

Another fun one:

'ik laat me de kaas niet van het brood eten' 'I won't allow them to eat the cheese off my bread' (or something)

meaning... well, guess !

[WeepingElf]

Another fun one:

'ik laat me de kaas niet van het brood eten' 'I won't allow them to eat the cheese off my bread' (or something)

meaning... well, guess !

Similar in German: Ich lasse mir die Butter nicht vom Brot nehmen 'I won't allow them to take the butter from my bread'.

[gach]

It's Christmas (and a white one too, who would've guessed a week ago) so let's have a seasonal one from a Christmas carol. In Finnish there's a strange rustic way to say that there's enough food for a feast, olla kystä kyllä, seen on the line

On äiti laittanut kystä kyllä
"Mother has prepared a feast"

in the song Kun joulu on from 1901. For speakers of the modern language this is strange and hard to parse. They will interpret the word kyllä as the affirmative particle "yes" and kystä mostly resembles kysta ("cyst"). This doesn't help to catch the intended meaning.

What's really going on is that both of the words are dialectal and archaic. Kystä is the partitive of an obsolete word kypsi, meaning cooked food, and inflects like the word lapsi ("child", compare lapsi ~ lasta), while kyllä here is an old variant of the word kyllin ("enough"). So nothing to do with acknowledging a medical condition but merely a way to say there's enough hot on the table.

Wiktionary claims that in the modern language kystä only appears in the partitive singular and only in the previously mentioned song but there are people who do actually use this idiom now and them.

[Birdlang]

It's Christmas (and a white one too, who would've guessed a week ago) so let's have a seasonal one from a Christmas carol. In Finnish there's a strange rustic way to say that there's enough food for a feast, olla kystä kyllä, seen on the line

On äiti laittanut kystä kyllä
"Mother has prepared a feast"

in the song Kun joulu on from 1901. For speakers of the modern language this is strange and hard to parse. They will interpret the word kyllä as the affirmative particle "yes" and kystä mostly resembles kysta ("cyst"). This doesn't help to catch the intended meaning.

What's really going on is that both of the words are dialectal and archaic. Kystä is the partitive of an obsolete word kypsi, meaning cooked food, and inflects like the word lapsi ("child", compare lapsi ~ lasta), while kyllä here is an old variant of the word kyllin ("enough"). So nothing to do with acknowledging a medical condition but merely a way to say there's enough hot on the table.

Wiktionary claims that in the modern language kystä only appears in the partitive singular and only in the previously mentioned song but there are people who do actually use this idiom now and them.

Pretty cool, even though the only things I know about Finnish are 15 cases, a few phrases and words, and the alphabet, which I like a little.

[sirdanilot]

Isn't every christmas a white christmas in Finland? I went there once in february and it was minus 20 C, I could hardly breathe (such temperatures virtually never occur in Holland, at least not in the coastal region where I come from, though it occurs sporadically inland). Though I did go inland and not to Helsinki (though it was still minus 10 when we landed in helsinki).

Another weird Dutch idiom is 'je dat' or 'je van het', which would be used in something like "Op het gebied van Trappistenbier is Westvleteren je van het!" (among Trapist ales Westvleteren the best !)'. Superficially, 'je van het' would literraly translate to 'you from it'. However, 'je' here apparently was used as 'the best' in older forms of Dutch, though I do think it does derive from the second person singular informal pronoun 'je'.

This is more often used in its negative sense 'dat is niet je dat' (that's not very good, litt 'that's not you that').

[prettydragoon]

Isn't every christmas a white christmas in Finland? I went there once in february and it was minus 20 C, I could hardly breathe (such temperatures virtually never occur in Holland, at least not in the coastal region where I come from, though it occurs sporadically inland). Though I did go inland and not to Helsinki (though it was still minus 10 when we landed in helsinki).

Depends on where you are. In Helsinki, it's 50/60 whether you get white Christmas or not. And now a lot of the snow has already melted away. Ah, the joys of living in the Sunny South.

[Pole, the]

Depends on where you are. In Helsinki, it's 50/60 whether you get white Christmas or not.

Ah, so in Finland the percents add up to 110%. That's the secret of Finns never getting drunk!

[gach]

Depends on where you are. In Helsinki, it's 50/60 whether you get white Christmas or not.

Ah, so in Finland the percents add up to 110%. That's the secret of Finns never getting drunk!

No, we just have culturally productive ski jumpers who open their mouths more than they manage to think things through. So not? Every chance is an opportunity and it's a mesta place anyhow.

Anyway, you're lucky to get below -20°C on the coast here and some winters you get only a week or two enough snow to be properly able to ski. The Gulf Stream and climate change mean that the climate tends towards oceanic.

[jal]

"Op het gebied van Trappistenbier is Westvleteren je van het!"

Or, you just supply a reference to your source! Why on earth are you parroting some random page here???


JAL

[WeepingElf]

German has Hopfen und Malz sind verloren 'hops and malt are lost' = 'everything is lost' - a testimony of the importance of beer in German culture.

[sirdanilot]

"Op het gebied van Trappistenbier is Westvleteren je van het!"

Or, you just supply a reference to your source! Why on earth are you parroting some random page here???


JAL

Because I am posting on an internet forum and not publishing an article. I googled for an exemplar sentence or thrthe expression and found that one fitting.

To postn idiom that is more indicative of my dialect rather than standard dutch : 'wa kan mij het nou verrotten ' (what could it rot me - why would i care?'

[jal]

To post an idiom that is more indicative of my dialect rather than standard dutch : 'wa kan mij het nou verrotten ' (what could it rot me - why would i care?'

Judging "wa", you're from the South? Or perhaps Southern Randstad?


JAL

[sirdanilot]

I am from Zealand. A more accurate transcription would be the following: 'wa kan miin et noe verrotte '. I cannot type IPA on my phone but I guess you get the idea.

[jal]

I am from Zealand. A more accurate transcription would be the following: 'wa kan miin et noe verrotte '. I cannot type IPA on my phone but I guess you get the idea.

Yup, half my family is from Zeeland, so I have a pretty good idea of the pronunciation :).


JAL

[Copperknickers]

Had a really weird experience a few years back. Someone in the street randomly shouted at me: 'oi, your cat's dead!'

Which would have been more worrying if I possessed a cat. I was puzzled, but I assumed that I had been mistaken for someone else. After a few minutes of feeling sorry for the dead cat, I forgot about the incident until later the same day, when my friend said to me 'you look like your cat's dead'. I was extremely confused: how can you look like your cat's dead (never mind the fact I don't have a cat). I asked him what he meant, he looked at me like I was completely stupid and said 'your trousers are too short'.

Since then I have interrogated everyone from my local area about the above whenever I remember to, and have found 3 people, all born and bred natives of the same village (which I grew up in but was not from ancestrally), and not a soul from outside the village, not even in neighbouring villages 2 miles down the road, who is familiar with the idiom 'you look like your cat's dead' meaning 'your clothes are too small'. The 3 people did not know each other well, but I really don't understand how such a specific idiom can survive in a small village when I never heard it growing up apart from on that one day, and most people from the village have never heard it. I wouldn't swear it wasn't some kind of bizzarre practical joke. Very odd.

[jal]

It seems that the idiom is more wide-spread than your village: http://urbanglasgow.co.uk/archive/-and- ... _2733.html, http://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/index ... -are-dead/, http://scotlandwelcomesyou.com/scottish-sayings/


JAL

EDIT: added two more links

[gestaltist]

A Polish one that is very widespread and I find it amusing:

„Dupy nie urywa“ (literally „It doesn’t blow off one’s ass“). It means „It’s nothing special."

[Copperknickers]

It seems that the idiom is more wide-spread than your village: http://urbanglasgow.co.uk/archive/-and- ... _2733.html, http://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/index ... -are-dead/, http://scotlandwelcomesyou.com/scottish-sayings/


JAL

EDIT: added two more links

Thank you! I searched on the internet of course, for some reason I must have missed those links. It all makes a lot more sense now: obviously it's an East Coast and Central Belt idiom that seeped its way out to my West Coast village, which would explain why not a lot of people know it. Still, cat or budgie, it's pretty weird-ass.

[L'alphabētarium]

When shit hits the fan... has always made me cringe a little.
I just hope there isn't an actual real life story behind it... or at least lets hope the fan wasn't plugged in.

[Neon Fox]

Is the choice of numbers based on shape, or symbolism, or...?

If this pic I'm looking at is accurate, the modern Arabic seven is a V-shape, so that might explain the female version. And 10 is a straight thing next to a round thing, which could be interpreted as looking "male" if you have a fair bit of imagination. Once one sex had a number, analogy might cast around for a suitable one to use for the other sex, though I wouldn't venture to guess which one came was chosen first.

[jal]

I just hope there isn't an actual real life story behind it... or at least lets hope the fan wasn't plugged in. :?

There's this wonderful thing called Google...


JAL

[L'alphabētarium]

I just hope there isn't an actual real life story behind it... or at least lets hope the fan wasn't plugged in.

There's this wonderful thing called Google...

I appreciate the info, but I'm not sure I wanted to know. Or if I believe such instance ever occured for that matter...