I Never Knew There Was a Word for It - Adam Jacot De Boinod [82]
balebosteven (Yiddish) to bustle like a meticulous housewife
ryt’ rogom zemlyu (Russian) to make great efforts (literally, to dig up the ground with one’s horn)
echar la casa por la ventana (Latin American Spanish) to go all out (literally, to throw the house out of the window)
sisu (Finnish) obstinate determination, heroic guts, stubborn persistence
dumog (Tagalog, Philippines) to be absorbed in the fulfilment of one’s task
Mice milkers
Even so, diligence isn’t everything. There are some poor workers who bust a gut but fail to please simply because they can’t see the bigger picture. The French describe this as chercher midi à quatorze, literally, to look for midday at two o’clock in the afternoon. To the Dutch, a person who pays excessive attention to detail is a mierenneuker – literally, an ant fucker; or, more charitably, a muggenzifter (mosquito sifter) or a punaisepoetser (pin polisher). But all cultures are colourful in their criticism:
Erbsenzaehler (German) someone concerned with small things (literally, counter of peas)
pilkunnussija (Finnish) an extreme pedant (literally, comma fucker)
taburaka (Gilbertese, Oceania) one who exaggerates rules and regulations, a stickler for the letter of the law
Mäusemelker (German) someone who eagerly concentrates on the nitty-gritty rather than the wider overview (literally, someone who milks mice)
gladit’ shnurki (Russian) to be over-solicitous, to do too much (literally, to iron someone’s shoelaces)
Jobsworth
Other colleagues bring other problems:
Schnarchnase (German) someone who is slow in acting (literally, snoring nose)
pezezengdeng (Manobo, Philippines) to be spoken to but sit motionless and ignore their request
reke (Yoruba, Nigeria, Benin and Togo) to wait in expectation of another’s mistake
kyag-kyag (Tibetan) throwing obstacles in the way of another’s work, out of spite
švejkování (Czech) deviously undermining your boss or circumventing your supervisor’s wishes while appearing angelically innocent and even rather simple (in the manner of the Good Soldier Svejk, the novel by Jaroslav Hasek)
suthi vuttiya (Tamil) the method used by call centre employees to avoid taking people’s calls by changing their place on the list
Promises, promises
At least you can rely on the hopeless, spiteful and devious to be counterproductive. Worse are those who promise to help but never deliver, or who rush around frantically but never get anywhere:
kaengeng (Gilbertese, Oceania) to say ‘yes yes’ and do nothing about it
llamarada de petate (Central American Spanish) an undertaking started with great enthusiasm and suddenly dropped (petate is a woven reed mat used for sleeping)
hubyahubyeka (Tsonga, South Africa) to hurry here and there achieving nothing
ningas-kugon (Tagalog, Philippines) the sudden spurt of enthusiasm followed by a slowing down and an eventual slipping back into old habits
robota ne vovk, v lis ne vtiče (Ukrainian proverb) I can get back to doing that later (literally, work is not a wolf, it doesn’t run into the woods)
nakinaki (Mandinka, West Africa) to go here and there pretending to be busy in order to avoid work
mikka bouzu (Japanese) a quitter (literally, three-day monk: a person who leaves the monkhood only three days after taking his vows)
Pedalling in yoghurt
The French, in particular, have a fine range of metaphors for not getting things done for one reason or another. Brasser de l’air is to give the impression of being busy (literally, to shuffle the air); peigner la girafe is to waste time in idle pursuits (literally, to comb the giraffe); pedaler dans le yaourt means to be getting nowhere fast (literally, to be pedalling in yoghurt); while un coup d’épée dans l’eau is a wasted effort (literally, a sword blow into water).
Counting the stars
One would almost prefer to work alongside those who model their lives on the Mexican Spanish expression el trabajo embrutece, work brutalizes …
poltrone (Italian) lazybones (literally,