• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

besengkayau (Iban, Sarawak and Brunei) to hang by the hands from a beam and move along it hand over hand (done by young men courting at night to avoid walking on the springy and creaking floor)

miàla màndry (Malagasy, Madagascar) to spend the night away from home and yet be back in the early morning as if never having been away

un petit cinq-à-sept (French) a quick five to seven o’clock (an afternoon quickie with your lover before going home to your spouse)

On reflection

In Rome love will come to you suddenly

Palindromes – words and sentences that read the same forwards and backwards – have been popular since ancient times. The Germans have even come up with a palindromic word – Eibohphobie – that means a fear of palindromes:

a dyma’r addewid diweddar am y da (Welsh) and here is the recent promise about the livestock

socorram-me, subi no onibus em Marrocos (Portuguese) help me I took a bus in Morocco

Selmas lakserøde garagedøre skal samles (Danish) Selma’s salmon red garage doors must be assembled

ein Neger mit Gazelle zagt im Regen nie (German) a Negro with a gazelle never despairs in the rain

Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor (Latin) in Rome love will come to you suddenly

Thanks for the treat

In Japan, norokeru means to boast in an annoying way about your great relationship, while gochisosama is a sarcastic reply (literally, thanks for the treat). But good, bad or too-perfect-to-be-true, in reality relationships come in all varieties:

sarbo (Dutch) a person who regularly sleeps with the same partner while living separately

nanoua (Gilbertese, Oceania) a heart divided between two loves

kutzwagers (Dutch) two or more men who have slept with the same woman

stroitel’ (Russian) a man who likes to have sex with two women at the same time

Fried fish enthusiasm

The Germans have come up with some very useful descriptions of the nuances of modern love:

die Bettgeschichte a one-night stand (literally, bedtime story)

das Bratkartoffelverhältnis someone who cooks and cleans in exchange for occasional affection (literally, home-fries affair)

Lückenfüller the person one dates between two serious relationships (literally, hole-filler)

Backfischschwärmerei the crush young teenage girls get for older men (literally, fried fish enthusiasm)

Faded tomatoes

Relationships come in all lengths too. If it’s not going to end in marriage or a seemly long-term partnership without legal ties, there inevitably must come the brutal moment when one has to tell the other that things are no longer rosy in the garden of love:

Trennungsagentur (German) a man hired by women to break the news to their men that they are dumped (literally, separation agent)

dejar clavado a alguien (Spanish) to dump someone, to stand them up (literally, to leave someone nailed)

dostat kopačky (Czech) to be dumped (literally, to get football boots)

dar calabazas (Spanish) to jilt, ignore or stand someone up; to reject a marriage proposal (literally, to give pumpkins)

il due di picche (Italian) to be dumped (literally, the two of spades, as in the card you are given)

proshla mlyubov’ zavyali pomidory (Russian) the love affair is over (literally, love is gone, the tomatoes have faded)

IDIOMS OF THE WORLD

Once bitten, twice shy

el gato escaldado del agua caliente huye (Spanish) the cat that has been scalded runs away from hot water

sütten ağizi yanan yoğurdu üfleyerek yer (Turkish) if hot milk burns your mouth, you’ll blow the yoghurt before you eat it

brændt barn skyer ilden (Danish) a burned child is shy of fire

puganaya vorona kusta/telezhnogo skripa/sobstvennoj teni/boitsya (Russian) a spooked crow is afraid of a bush/a carriage wheel’s squeak/its own shadow

mtafunwa na nyoka akiona unyasi hushtuka (Swahili) one who has been bitten by a snake startles at a reed

cão picado por cobra, tem medo de linguiça (Portuguese) a dog that has been bitten by a snake fears sausages

7.

Family Ties

žena se plaši prvog muža, a muž se plaši druge žene (Serbian)

a wife is frightened