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.
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
