In Finnish we have “kissanristiäiset” (literally means a cat’s christening), which means some trivial and meaningless celebration/event.
I’m not Thai, but they have an idiom that something will happen one afternoon in their next reincarnation.
Idioms is basically how French was built https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:French_idioms
Lithuanian here.
"Neperšokęs griovio, nesakyk ‘op’“ (Don’t say ‘op’ before you jump over the ditch) Don’t brag about doing something before you did it.
“Bala nematė” (The swamp didn’t see) When you are facing a dilemma and decide to just do something.
“Man šakės” (It’s the pitchfork for me) Basically means “I’m fucked"
“Pagauti kampą” (To catch the corner) To understand something.
“Stogas važiuoja” (The roof is going away) Used to refer to someone who’s going crazy.
“Pilstyti iš tuščio į kiaurą” (To pour from an empty one into a leaky one) to speak in meaningless statements.
“Pjauti grybą” (To cut the mushroom) to talk nonsense, or do meaningless tasks.
“Nevynioti žodžių į vatą” (Not to roll words into cotton wool) to speak directly and honestly.
“Palikti ant ledo” (To leave someone on ice) To ghost or abandon someone.
“Aiškintis santykius” (To clarify relations) To have a fight.
“Rodyti ožius" (To show the goats) To act stubborn.
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My favourite Aussie idiom is “We’re not here to fuck spiders.” Meaning that we are trying to do some work, stop fucking around.
In Canadian “fucking the dog” means slacking off, especially at work. This is not the same as “Screw the pooch” which means to fuck something up big time.
I love this, absolutely using at work! Thanks!
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For German, there is a really cool series of YouTube Shorts starting with this one:
Aussie here. Our entire dialect is one weird idiom.
Swedish
I suspect there are owls in the bog (jag anar ugglor i mossen) means something is really fishy or suspicious.
Now you have really shit in the blue cupboard (nu har du verkligen skitit i det blå skåpet) means that you have done something that’s so far out of line or with such dire consequences that there is no return away from this. Kinda like a harder way of saying “now you’ve done it”.
To throw water on a goose (Slå vatten på en gås) means to say something that won’t be comprehended or taken seriously by the recipient at all, either because of stupidity or because they are too locked in their mindset.
I’ve always understood “skita i det blå skåpet” to mean messing with/angering the police/government.
Also the Swedish classic “glida in på en räkmacka” ((to) slide in on a shrimp sandwich), which basically means to end up somewhere (location, career, situation) without any difficulties. The shrimp sandwich symbolizes a life without difficulties or in some luxury.
Then there’s also “halka in på ett bananskal” ((to) slip in on a banana peel), which is similar to the above, but not always favorable and you don’t have any plan or preparation. You just winged it or it just happened by accident.
In Australia people who mean business say “I’m not here to fuck spiders.” I think that’s just wonderful.
In America we express suffering beyond words by saying we’re “living the dream”. And the Brits think we have an irony deficiency.
You mean sarcasm
-a Brit
Yeah, right. They meant sarcasm.
Exactly, thanks
Idk the spiders looking are looking mighty fine
Shut up :)
In France we’re not here to fuck flies
We don’t mind others’ onions
When someone is about to get late somewhere, we say « Tu vas te faire appeler Arthur » (literally « You’re gonna be called Arthur »)
This expression came during the German occupation, when soldiers would shout « Acht Uhr » (« eight hour ») to people during curfew. It sounds like « Arthur » in French.
Last one. « Faire le Jacques » (« acting like Jack ») means « playing dumb »
Ok next alt account I make is going to be named fly fucker
That last one reminds me of something I heard on the Mighty Boosh. Vince called someone a “Jack of Clubs” for hitting him
TIL about the origin of « Tu vas te faire appeler Arthur »
Aussie subtleties of the c-word.
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“Silly Cunt” = funny person (endearing)
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“Stupid Cunt” = complete idiot (serious)
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“Dumb Cunt” = a good mate acting stupid (jovial)
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“This Cunt” = referring to a good mate who’s done/said something uniquely odd (jovial)
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“Acting like a Cunt” = acting terribly (serious)
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“Don’t be a Cunt” = stop acting terribly (serious)
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“Bunch of Cunts” = all your good mates (endearing)
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“Good Cunt” = the best compliment you can receive (endearing)
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“Dog Cunt” = the worst insult you can receive (get ready to fight)
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“Shit Cunt” = insult (serious)
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“Bit of a Cunt” = insult (jovial)
You can put mad Infront of all the cunts that don’t have adjectives already to make them even more extreme.
“This mad cunt” for when your mate’s done something really out there while “mad dog cunt” is real fucking bad for example
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In Denmark we have a bunch of weird ones: When there isn’t a problem: “There is no cow on the ice”/ Der er ingen ko på isen
When you’re helping someone when it would be better they did it themselves you’re doing them “a bears favor” / en bjørnetjeneste
When you want it both ways but cant: “You want to blow with flour in your mouth” / blæse med mel i munden. This always made more sense to me than the english, you cant have your cake and eat it too.
When something is complete gibberish, it “sounds like volapyk” / lyder som volapyk. Volapyk is an actual made-up language like esperanto. incedentaly the same expression also exists in Esperanto
and i’m sure there is more
“To get the cow from the ice” (“Die Kuh vom Eis kriegen”) is a german phrase meaning to solve an urgent problem.
When you want it both ways but cant: “You want to blow with flour in your mouth”
Oh I like this one
In French we would say « You can’t have the butter and the butter’s money »
One usual extension of the expression is « You can’t have the butter, the butter’s money and the creamer’s butt »
When there’s no reason to hurry « y a pas le feu au lac » (« the lake isn’t on fire »)
This always made more sense to me than the english, you cant have your cake and eat it too.
I always had problems with that idiom in English, until someone pointed to me that it’s backwards just because it sounds better, it means “You can’t eat your cake and have it too”, i.e. if you eat the cake you don’t have it anymore, so you can’t both have and eat it at the same time.
I remember learning it as a semi-historical idiom, that nice white cakes and frostings could be expensive, so poor people would pay to have a pretty looking cake that’s mostly for show that’s like a prop or for a nice tasting cake that doesn’t look grand or large. Old guy could have been telling a tale though.
This idiom confused me for the longest time, because I use “have” and “eat” very interchangeably. “Are you going to have dinner?” etc. I didn’t see that, rather, they meant “have” as a synonym for “keep”.
And yeah, it’s definitely backwards. “Have” doesn’t suggest “will have”, it’s a present term only. I have a cake, can I eat it? Yes. Switching the order makes more sense. Furthermore, I think “keep” at least suggests long term.
I propose “You can’t eat your cake and keep it too”
Yet still, who ever eats a whole cake? I definitely keep some for later.
Have and eat are both present looking to the future in this insane. Like have it in the future if you eat it now. It does make sense, but I do understand your gripe
Bears Favor exists in German too (jemandem einen Bärendienst erweisen)
When something is complete gibberish, it “sounds like volapyk” / lyder som volapyk.
In Dutch we say “This might as well be Turkish”, if something makes no sense.
If I recall correctly, I Turkish they call complete gibberish “Chinese”, and Mandarin just straight skips to “ethereal writing”.You can definitely see which one’s the more difficult language, here.
One American one I like is “I’m going to see a man about a horse” in regards to going to the bathroom.
Is THAT what that idiom means? I knew it was said on exiting a room, I never realized it was more specific than that.
I also heard a more crass one: dropping the kids off at the pool
english:
“daddy” is some older man you’re sexually attracted to
also, “daddy” is your biological father
If you’re in a scenario where you need to specify between them, “zaddy” is a replacement for the former
There’s a big difference between “Bless me father for I have sinned” and “I’m sorry daddy, I’ve been a bad girl”.
what’s the difference?
Danish is full of idioms. Some people can have entire conversations using only idioms.
Some of the peculiar ones with animals:
“There’s no cow on the ice” = it’s not urgent.
"The goat has been shaved " = the job is complete.
"A dog in a game of bowling " = someone that doesn’t fit in.
“The dog is buried there” = the problem is found there.
Wow, Danes don’t like dogs huh?
I would think they would think dogs were…great
I’ll see myself out
Ruh roh
“The dog is buried there” = the problem is found there.
We’ve got the same in Germany. Probably carried over because we’re neighbours.
First thing that came to my mind was “Da wird doch der Hund in der Pfanne verrückt!” - “That makes the dog in the pan go mad!” You basically say it when you’re angry about something. Usually as part of a string of expletives as you charge up a long furious rant.
And even better: we only use the ice-cow as a thing of the past. “Kuh vom Eis” (cow off the ice) in the sense of an urgent situation has been resolved.
Ice dwelling bovines seem to have been a real problem.
There’s a bunch of weird ones in Portuguese.
- “Caroço de manga não é sabonete” Do you think that mango seed is soap? = “this is an absurd proposal/situation/etc.”
- “Pobre só sobe na vida quando o barraco explode” Poor people only ascend on life when the [shit]shack explodes. = “don’t expect social ascension”
- “Enquanto vem com o milho, já comi a polenta.” While you’re bringing the corn, I already ate the polenta. = “I’ve already handled this, you’re too late.”
- “um polaco de cada colônia” a Pole from each settlement = a bunch of randomly picked people or items. I don’t think that people use this too much outside Paraná.
- “farinha do mesmo saco” flour from the same bag = extremely similar in some aspects that matter (and usually negative ones)
- “comer o pão que o diabo amassou” to eat the bread kneaded by the devil = to go through rough times
- “Vai chupar prego até virar tachinha!” Go suck an [iron] nail until it becomes a thumbtack! = somewhat polite way to tell someone to fuck off
- “Vai ver se estou na esquina.” *Go check if I’m around the corner." = also a way to tell people to fuck off
- “anta quadrada” squared tapir = “anta” tapir is used to call someone stupid, so anta quadrada is stupid to the power of two.
- “anta cúbica” cubed tapir = because some people do some really, really stupid shit.
- “mais louco que o Requião de pedalinho” crazier than Requião on a paddle boat = Requião is a politician here in Paraná known for his crazy antics. The phrase highlights that something is completely fucking crazy. Clearly local.
- “teu cu” your arse[hole] = definitively, clearly, and blatantly “no”.
Only a few of these - “comer o pão que o diabo amassou”, “vai ver se estou na esquina” - are used in Portugal, so they’re mostly used in Brasil.
The language hasn’t drifted all that much in between both countries during the last couple of hundred years but expressions seem to tend to be the first to drift away.
It also seems to me that expressions drift away faster than other aspects of the language. Perhaps due to their casual nature, or due to context. And they’re often extremely local, too - for example, I’ve heard nordestinos using “sacrifício de mundo” (lit. world sacrifice) to refer to difficult things, while folks here in Paraná practically never do it. While saying that something is “uma vaca no milharal” (a cow in the corn farm - wrecking everything with no regards or reason) usually outs the person as from a rural background.
For speakers from Portugal there’s an additional weird expression: pila is used here in Paraná as a completely innocent word for money, e.g. “dois pila” two bucks. (In PT I believe that it’s used as a slang for dick.)
You are correct on the pila thing, though it’s old fashioned and kinda children’s language.
Funilly enough and if I remember it correctly, a pila is a kind of throwable spear from the Roman times.
Funilly enough and if I remember it correctly, a pila is a kind of throwable spear from the Roman times.
You might be into something here. The spear is pilum, and Portuguese reborrowed it as pilo. However Portuguese used to repurpose the gender change for specific types of something, specially for Latin neuter words: see ovo/ova, casco/casca, jarro/jarra, barco/barca. It’s possible that the slang appeared this way, with people referring to their dicks as a type of spear. (It’s kind of childish but fairly common; c.f. caralho from caraculum “small mast”)
There’s also another Latin pila meaning mortar, but it got inherited by Portuguese as pia “sink”.
(IIRC pila-as-money is from a politician, Raul Pilla.)
Small note, this is Brazilian Portuguese 🇧🇷 (PT-BR), not European Portuguese 🇵🇹 (PT-PT). I never heard most of these. We do have the “farinha do mesmo saco” and “comer o pão que o diabo amassou” though.
One important detail is that those country-based labels are at most abstractions or geographical terms. “Brazilian Portuguese” and “European Portuguese” aren’t actual, well-defined dialects; what people actually speak is local, in both sides. (e.g. “Paulistano Portuguese”, “Alentejano Portuguese”, “Estremenho Portuguese”, you get the idea.)
This is relevant here because I wouldn’t be surprised if plenty Brazilians never heard some of those. For example, “um polaco de cada colônia” only makes sense in Paraná, Polish immigration here was large enough to make some people call other immigrants “Poles”, even Germans and Italians. So the “Poles from each colony” are usually people/things that you might think that are related, but have zero to do with each other.
You’re not wrong but the way I see it it’s a hierarchical term.
Portuguese - all Portuguese based languages Brazilian Portuguese - all Portuguese dialects in Brazil European Portuguese - all Portuguese dialects in Portugal Angolan Portuguese - all Portuguese dialects in Angola and so on…
I’m not expecting everyone to know every expression under the sun, but those are CLEARLY Brazilian-Portuguese based so I thought it best to clear it up because people just say Portuguese most times and I feel that creates some confusion.
Sorry for the long reply, I happen to enjoy this subject quite a bit.
The “hierarchy” breaks once you try to analyse it with no regards to governments, focusing solely on linguistic features (phonetic, phonology, syntax, and the expressions). Because of things like this:
- Manezinho (from Florianópolis) and Azorean dialects are clearly a beast apart. They can understand each other, nobody else can understand them. If there’s one major division in Portuguese, it got to be Insular with those two and Continental with the others.
- Alentejo usage of -ndo gerunds, a gente, and a partially syllable-timed prosody. Those things are typically associated with BP, not EP.
- Mineiro (BP) often reducing vowels even more aggressively than Estremenho (EP), even if theoretically BP is known for syllable-timed prosody.
- More conservative speakers in Paraná and Santa Catarina not raising the final unstressed vowels (you know, that “dor de dente” [dẽte] meme for Curitiba? That’s it), while almost everyone else would raise it to either [ɨ] or [i]. It’s a phonemic deal because the raising merges /e o/ and /i u/ in this position. For reference this conservation of the unraised vowels is usually associated with Galician, not even Portuguese. And it’s actually a phonemic deal, since the raising triggers a merge for non-conservative speakers in Brazil.
- The dialects in the northern ~half of Brazil (N, NE, chunks of SE) palatalising [s~z] into [ʃ~ʒ], a trait shared with dialects spoken in Portugal, but not with the southern ~half.
- In the same rough area as above you got a coda /ɾ/→/r/ shift. Mattoso Câmara tries to deal with it in a cheesy way, but it’s also phonemic in nature, unlike using [ɹ] for /ɾ/.
- Lack of regressive T-palatalisation (/ti/ as [tʃi]) in some chunks of the Brazilian Northeast, in Cuiabá and in some chunks of Santa Catarina. Often with some caveat, like Cuiabano rendering /ʃ/ as [tʃ] instead, some Nordestinos doing progressive palatalisation (e.g. “oito” as [ojtʃu]) and some Catarinas using [ts] instead (e.g. “tia” as [tsiɐ]), that’s clearly a parallel development.
- Trasmontano still keeping the old /ʃ/ vs. /tʃ/ distinction; e.g. “xícara” with /ʃ/, but “chiar” with /tʃ/.
- A few heavily conservative expressions used in Caipira Portuguese, such as “inda” and “despois”. Caipira also merges the original coda /l/ with /ɾ/ instead of /w/ (e.g. “mal” as homophone of “mar”, not of “mau”)
- The SOV→SVO shift for clitic pronouns (te falar → falar-te) being likely more recent in Portugal than the colonisation of Brazil; for example, check news for the Lisbon earthquake and you’ll see SOV being used all the time.
I’m not informed enough on the dialects spoken in Africa to affirm anything about them, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that also applied there - for example, Portuguese as spoken in Luanda being actually closer to the one in Lisbon than the one in the Angolan countryside.
And it actually makes sense, when you think about the initial colonisation of Brazil - you had four initial settlements, most people were likely from southern Portugal, and each settlement would undergo independent dialect levelling.
Any hierarchy that we put here would eventually break, by the way. You get a bunch of wave innovations but their pattern usually ties large centres together, regardless of country, with rural varieties either adopting those features later or developing alternative ones. But if we must see it on a hierarchical way, the split wouldn’t follow country borders, it would be more like:
- Galician-Portuguese → Galician + Portuguese
- Portuguese → Coimbra-Lisbon + “a gente” dialects (southern Portugal and Brazil)
- “a gente” dialects → coda-/r/ dialects (northern half of Brazil) vs. coda-/ɾ/ (southern half of Brazil + Alentejo and the Algarve)
Note how the division actually lumps Alentejano and Algarviano alongside what you’d call BP, not EP. And note how it still breaks, for example the /ʃ/ coda in the northern half of Brazil was likely interference from Estremenho, even if both dialects would be relatively far from each other in the hierarchy.
That was a lot to take in indeed. I can’t speak for other dialects, but I can understand Azorean accent absolutely fine, same with Madeira. There are some idiomatic expressions here and there that I would maybe not understand but I would still clearly call it European Portuguese.
The same goes for Alentejo. They do use -ndo ending sometimes but I would still clearly call it mostly European Portuguese.
I don’t think this subject needs to be as complicated as you make it. Yes, if we deep dive we can look at things that way but I don’t really think that kind of discussion applies here, nor am I knowledgeable enough to engage with you on that hahah
I do love how passionate you are about it though!
At the end of the day what I mean is simply that any somewhat scientific “split” will not match the countries, making the labels near useless for a “hierarchy” (tree-like model) of sorts.
One important detail to consider is expectations - I’ve noticed that plenty speakers in Brazil tend to associate EP with specifically Estremenho, and in Portugal it seems to be that BP is mostly associated with Paulistano. But since those two diverge quite a bit from each other, this difference ends [incorrectly] extrapolated to some expectation of otherness and uniformity in “Portuguese as spoken there”.
Tendo dito isto, já que disse entender a variedade dos Açores: como classificaria a variedade deste vídeo - pt_PT ou pt_BR?
I do love how passionate you are about it though!
Thanks, and sorry - durante meus tempos de uni trabalhei com variedades locais (embora o foco fosse outro), então acabo falando um pouco demais do assunto, quando vem à tona.
Scientifically it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what makes EP or BP or others. Although maybe it could be done?
However, it’s easy to tell BP a part from others. If you mainly use “você” it’s BP. If you don’t use it, then you’d have to check other things I guess. Since, for instance, Portuguese from most African/Asian countries use “tu”.
Em relação ao vídeo, facilmente classificaria o vídeo como PT-BR. Apesar de não entender tudo, não só pelas expressões mas pela rapidez como é falado, consigo claramente perceber algumas expressões que dão características de Português do Brasil. Exemplos, a expressão “Aí eu falei”. O uso de “o cara”, “poxa” e outros. Não saberia dizer de que região do Brasil seria o sotaque/expressões, mas conseguia facilmente dizer que era do Brasil.
Edit: afinal até percebo melhor do que pensava. Tinha a velocidade do YouTube a 1.25x Voltando para 1x, ficou mais fácil de perceber.
I always said it as while you’re bringing the wheat I already ate the bread. But in my family we exaggerated it for effect: while you’re buying the wheat seed, I already shat the bread 😂
Isso, e era competição entre meus irmãos pra exagerar ao máximo : tipo, enquanto você estava a caminho da loja pra comprar o trigo, eu já comi o pão, caguei, fiz composto com a merda e plantei mais trigo, etc, etc
Alternative for “vai ver se estou na esquina” is “vai catar coquinho” (go gather little coconuts), I guess because it’s a silly, futile task?
“While you’re bringing corn, I already ate the polenta” is brutal
Haven’t seen some of these before. Ones I particularly like are:
- Tirar o cavalo da chuva: take your horse away from the rain = give up on something
- Lavar as mãos: wash (the) hands = do not involve yourself in something
Wash your hands of [something] is also in American English, although I think more typically used when you were already involved in something then removed yourself from the situation
Another Bible reference; this one refers to Roman governor Pontius Pilate washing his hands to indicate being done with the issue of Jesus’s execution.
Oh right, I hadn’t thought about it!
