Prof. Sam LawlerFor no reason at all, please give me your favourite cow-related figures of speech! (Stuff like "No use crying over spilled milk" or "until the cows come home", puns extremely welcome)
Dr. Anna Latour@sundogplanets In Dutch we say "Dat is een waarheid als een koe", which literally translates to "That is a truth like a cow", meaning that it is *very* true. I guess b/c you cannot avoid a cow when it is in front of you.
@sundogplanets We also say "Als het kalf verdronken is, dempt men de put", which translates to "One closes the well after the calf has drowned", meaning that measures to prevent something bad from happening only happen after that bad thing has already happened.
@sundogplanets We also say "Over koetjes and kalfjes praten". Literal translation: "talking about cows and calfs", and it means making small talk.
@sundogplanets There used to be a slogan for firework safety awareness, which was: "Je bent een rund als je met vuurwerk stunt". Literal translation: You are a cow if you do stunts with fireworks.
@sundogplanets probably more but I have a meeting now 😬
@sundogplanets "Je moet geen oude koeien uit de sloot halen," Rough translation: don't rescue an old cow from a ditch.
Basically it means that you should not bring up old grievances in current discussions.
Florine@anna @sundogplanets and what about "achteraf kijk je de koe in de kont"
Afterwards, you look into the cow's ass. Meaning: after the fact, it's easy to see what should have happened.
Afterwards, you look into the cow's ass. Meaning: after the fact, it's easy to see what should have happened.
Abhijit Menon-Sen@anna I'm getting a feeling that cows may be kinda important to the Dutch. :-)
In Hindi, "come bull, hit me" is how you say "asking for trouble", and there's another saying that translates to "whose stick, their buffalo".
@amenonsen That's one of the things I remember from reading Hoe Ik Talent Voor Het Leven Kreeg ("How I got a talent for life"), by Rodaan Al Galidi. If I remember correctly, the main character only knows one thing about the Netherlands before arriving there as a refugee: that Dutch cows are the ones that produce the most milk. For some reason that little thing really stuck with me.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28392238-hoe-ik-talent-voor-het-leven-kreeg
The English translation of the book is published as "Two Blankets, Three Sheets": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45484709-two-blankets-three-sheets
@amenonsen Those Hindi expressions are very nice and concise and visual. I like that. Are figures of speech and idioms like this common in Hindi? Do you have any favourites?
Hindi is SO FULL of such sayings! We had to memorise some of them in school. I have not really learned to use them in a natural way, and many of them make no sense to my literalist brain.
My "favourite" is one that says: "someone who puts their head in the mortar, why would they fear the pestle?" (but it's talking about the sort of huge mortar and pestle that is used to hull grain).
The way I see it, if you put your head in the mortar, the pestle is THE MOST OBVIOUS thing to fear. But my partner, who is much wiser in the way of idioms (having grown up speaking hoity-toity Hindi in Lucknow), says it's meant to refer to a calculated risk. Hmpf.
There's another one that says "my cat, meowing at ME?". :cat:
@amenonsen What's the meaning of the cat one‽ 👀 @sundogplanets
@anna [cold sweat] This is too much like school. Just don't ask me to use the saying in a sentence. :^)
It's somethng like "biting the hand that feeds you", but lower-stakes than biting.
(Hey, I thought of another one that will make no sense to you as a vegan (I presume): "chicken at home is like dal".)
@sundogplanets Another fun one: "Je weet nooit hoe een koe een haas vangt". Literal translation: you never know how a cow might catch a hare. It means that you should never assume that a problem is unsolvable.
@sundogplanets We have a bunch of dairy-related ones also:
"Zich de kaas niet van het brood laten eten." Rough translation: not letting anyone eat the cheese off of their sandwich. Means that you can stand up for yourself and don't let people mess with you or treat you unfairly.
"Er geen kaas van gegeten hebben." Rough translation: [that person] hasn't eaten cheese from there. Meaning that they don't know what they're talking about.
"Huisjesmelker." Literally: house milker. Our word for landlords who exploit tenants by having many bad apartments that they ask too much money for, especially if they themselves don't have a "proper" job.
Similarly "uitmelken" implies milking a cow until nothing is left, with the obvious meaning.
Jaap-Henk Hoepman 🟥 ⬜️ 🟩 ⬛️@anna @sundogplanets Also in the sense of ‘try it, you might be lucky’ (if all normal options are exhausted).