Read Online I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms From Around the World by Jag Bhalla - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jag Bhalla
Ads: Link
we split hairs, the French are more exacting; they “cut a hair in four.”
As noted above, the Japanese have particularly talented anatomies. When they want something badly, they say it’s “like a hand coming out of one’s throat.” When gasping for breath one “breathes through his shoulder.” An enterprising Arab seizes an opportunity by knowing “where to bite the shoulder.” A Russian who “bites the elbow” is crying over spilt milk . To try to charm someone, the Japanese “speak through the nose.” And when they have something on their minds, i.e., they are concerned, they “make their eyebrows cloudy.” Sometimes the Japanese have good reason to have cloudy eyebrows; when something bad comes to light they say, “one’s buttocks split.”
Speaking of the hind area, when we say someone is a brown-noser or butt kisser , similarly servile Italians are “foot-lickers.” Equivalent Hindi speakers more specifically “lick the soles of the feet” (they have a related expression that translates as “foot nectar,” meaning “water in which the feet of an idol or of a respected personage have been washed”). A groveling Russian, on the other hand, “licks eye,” whereas a submissive Spaniard would be a “belly with calluses.” The Japanese expression for a toady is excrementally evocative; it literally means “goldfish poop.”
Enough preamble; let’s get into the heart (and belly) of the wonderful world of anatomical idioms, starting from the top:
HEAD & NECK & HAIR
To grab someone’s hair: to pull someone’s leg (Spanish)
To let one’s hair grow white in the sun: to idle one’s life away (Hindi)
The coat of hair is good: to be from a good family (Japanese)
To bend the spiral of hair on the crown of one’s head: to become nasty (Japanese)
To devour hair from head: to eat one out of house and home (German)
Anger hair points to heaven: to be livid, hopping mad (Japanese)
Not to leave a hair on one’s head: to beat soundly (Hindi)
Feeling that hair on the back of head is pulled back: reluctantly (Japanese)
A single hair from nine oxen: a drop in a bucket (Chinese)
To cut a hair in four: to split hairs (French)
To pull the hair out of someone’s nostrils: to dupe someone (Japanese)
Smoke belches from the seven openings on the head: very angry (Chinese)
To squeeze one’s head: to rack one’s brain (Japanese)
To eat the brain of: to bore with chatter (Hindi)
To empty the brain: to tire oneself by talking too much (Hindi)
Good health on your head: be well (Yiddish)
Go twist your own head: go fly a kite (Yiddish)
You’re climbing on my head: you’re getting on my nerves (Arabic)
A two-headed woman: a pregnant woman (Hindi)
A neck doesn’t turn: heavily in debt (Japanese)
To ride on the neck: to dominate (Hindi)
Get your jaw dislocated: die laughing (Japanese)
FACE
What is written on the brow: destiny (Hindi)
To notch in the forehead: to commit to memory, to remember well (Russian)
Forehead to forehead: face to face (Russian)
Seven inches in a forehead: as wise as Solomon (Russian)
To puff up cheeks: to gossip (Spanish, Chile)
The face to be noseless: without shame (Hindi)
A face full of spring air: radiant with happiness (Chinese)
A stepmother’s face: an unsmiling face, a sullen look (Chinese)
To make one’s face cloudy: to look glum (Japanese)
A salty face: a sullen face (Japanese)
A flame comes out of one’s face: blush (Japanese)
Have the face of fixed cement: have a lot of nerve (Spanish)
To suck with the face down: to be silly, ignorant (Hindi)
Take by the chin: coax, appease (Hindi)
To be left with the square face: to be very surprised (Spanish, Mexico)
To use someone with one’s chin: to order someone around (Japanese)
To stick one’s chin out: to become exhausted (Japanese)
EYES
Flames licking at one’s eyebrows: a desperate situation (Chinese)
Urgent like eyebrows on fire: extremely urgent (Chinese)
With dancing eyebrows and a radiant face: enraptured (Chinese)
Something
As noted above, the Japanese have particularly talented anatomies. When they want something badly, they say it’s “like a hand coming out of one’s throat.” When gasping for breath one “breathes through his shoulder.” An enterprising Arab seizes an opportunity by knowing “where to bite the shoulder.” A Russian who “bites the elbow” is crying over spilt milk . To try to charm someone, the Japanese “speak through the nose.” And when they have something on their minds, i.e., they are concerned, they “make their eyebrows cloudy.” Sometimes the Japanese have good reason to have cloudy eyebrows; when something bad comes to light they say, “one’s buttocks split.”
Speaking of the hind area, when we say someone is a brown-noser or butt kisser , similarly servile Italians are “foot-lickers.” Equivalent Hindi speakers more specifically “lick the soles of the feet” (they have a related expression that translates as “foot nectar,” meaning “water in which the feet of an idol or of a respected personage have been washed”). A groveling Russian, on the other hand, “licks eye,” whereas a submissive Spaniard would be a “belly with calluses.” The Japanese expression for a toady is excrementally evocative; it literally means “goldfish poop.”
Enough preamble; let’s get into the heart (and belly) of the wonderful world of anatomical idioms, starting from the top:
HEAD & NECK & HAIR
To grab someone’s hair: to pull someone’s leg (Spanish)
To let one’s hair grow white in the sun: to idle one’s life away (Hindi)
The coat of hair is good: to be from a good family (Japanese)
To bend the spiral of hair on the crown of one’s head: to become nasty (Japanese)
To devour hair from head: to eat one out of house and home (German)
Anger hair points to heaven: to be livid, hopping mad (Japanese)
Not to leave a hair on one’s head: to beat soundly (Hindi)
Feeling that hair on the back of head is pulled back: reluctantly (Japanese)
A single hair from nine oxen: a drop in a bucket (Chinese)
To cut a hair in four: to split hairs (French)
To pull the hair out of someone’s nostrils: to dupe someone (Japanese)
Smoke belches from the seven openings on the head: very angry (Chinese)
To squeeze one’s head: to rack one’s brain (Japanese)
To eat the brain of: to bore with chatter (Hindi)
To empty the brain: to tire oneself by talking too much (Hindi)
Good health on your head: be well (Yiddish)
Go twist your own head: go fly a kite (Yiddish)
You’re climbing on my head: you’re getting on my nerves (Arabic)
A two-headed woman: a pregnant woman (Hindi)
A neck doesn’t turn: heavily in debt (Japanese)
To ride on the neck: to dominate (Hindi)
Get your jaw dislocated: die laughing (Japanese)
FACE
What is written on the brow: destiny (Hindi)
To notch in the forehead: to commit to memory, to remember well (Russian)
Forehead to forehead: face to face (Russian)
Seven inches in a forehead: as wise as Solomon (Russian)
To puff up cheeks: to gossip (Spanish, Chile)
The face to be noseless: without shame (Hindi)
A face full of spring air: radiant with happiness (Chinese)
A stepmother’s face: an unsmiling face, a sullen look (Chinese)
To make one’s face cloudy: to look glum (Japanese)
A salty face: a sullen face (Japanese)
A flame comes out of one’s face: blush (Japanese)
Have the face of fixed cement: have a lot of nerve (Spanish)
To suck with the face down: to be silly, ignorant (Hindi)
Take by the chin: coax, appease (Hindi)
To be left with the square face: to be very surprised (Spanish, Mexico)
To use someone with one’s chin: to order someone around (Japanese)
To stick one’s chin out: to become exhausted (Japanese)
EYES
Flames licking at one’s eyebrows: a desperate situation (Chinese)
Urgent like eyebrows on fire: extremely urgent (Chinese)
With dancing eyebrows and a radiant face: enraptured (Chinese)
Something
Similar Books
