https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/idioms-from-around-the-world I’ve read this article with much amusement while appreciating its educational value – and who knows, maybe one day I will end up saying something like “Should I sniff my nails?” without thinking. For the kind of situations these idioms designate, read this article then ask yourself which ones are likely to stay with you. Of course, some of them are clearly inextricable from certain aspects of their culture of origin that you wouldn’t expect the average modern day foreigner to know – maybe not even the average modern day person who was born in the country in question – but let’s read on and enjoy some element of seemingly completely unexpectable wonders of funny idioms.
Clearly, I wasn’t born in Turkey, and so number 6 surprised me yet struck a chord with me. But I’m already wondering how often people in the Ottoman Empire threw shoes on the roof of a shoemaker when they hadn’t actually bought them from said shoemaker – a non-existent case of a poor quality product; a spiteful personal attack with an element of malicious falsehood. Although it can be argued that if it were a flat roof, any shoes successfully thrown onto it might end up invisible to the people below. And if they were thrown onto an inclined roof, what would be the odds of them rolling down and falling off the end? But it really is an expression that has lasted to this day, it would seem. Then there’s “Don’t push granny into the nettles”, which I think anyone could be forgiven for thinking, wrongly, that this would amount to either “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you” or “Respect your elders” rather than the entry for it provided by this article. By the way, number 15 is particularly dumb: who makes fences out of sausages? Also, it’s just an idea but maybe “Should I sniff my nails?” could become used to reflect stubborn indifference rather than just to imply “How would I know?” among Greeks today (if it hasn’t already!)? Also, with number 17, saying that something has nothing to do with you does not mean that you’re “no use in a situation”; check your privilege. The final one, while it qualifies as threatening in its own way, doesn’t actually imply a threat of violence, and I like that.
I enjoyed reading this article so much that I just had to invent an odd idiom of my own. And it is: “We don’t applaud fish for swimming.” It’s like this: seriously, no fish ever born never swam a stroke, whatever would happen to it before it died; it’s simply inevitable. But I (somehow) conceived of person A expecting person B to applaud a fish for swimming. And what’s the best that could come from that? Basically, person A is in fact trying to get person B to admire a fish for swimming – create an entirely foolish and baseless positive impression of something which simply doesn’t merit it. And so in real life it’s supposed to mean “You’re not fooling anyone” or “I see through your lies” or “I know you’re attempting to take advantage of me and it’s not working.” Boom. You’re welcome.