What are some (non-English) idioms, and what do they mean (both literally and in context)? Odd ones, your favorite ones - any and all are welcome. :)
For example, in English I might call someone a “good egg,” meaning they’re a nice person. Or, if it’s raining heavily, I might say “it’s raining cats and dogs.”
In Norwegian we say “helt sylta” (“completely pickled”) when we have a very stuffy nose. I tried using that idiom when calling out of work in the US once, and was informed that I had just told them I was too drunk to go to work!
I love the Norwegian “helt Texas” or “completely Texas”, which means something’s totally crazy. Probably a reference to Westerns.
I feel like it’s accurate to say Texas is completely Texas.
A classic! I don’t know how I forgot to mention that one, I even coincidentally explained it to someone earlier today!
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Cubans have the antonym to that:
Aserlo como los blancos “Do it like white people”
Do it properly 😜
Almost forgot “jalla” or “jallamekk”, originally adopted by Norwegian military from a middle eastern word for “fast”, meaning a quick and dirty, but not particularly high quality, solution.
Yeah it’s common in English that saying “I’m Xed” means drunk.
Fucked, twated, trollied, muntered, cunted, steamed etc.
According to John Oliver you can use any noun, like for example “gazeboed”.
100% people in the UK would know what you meant straight away.
That’s generally true, but there are some exceptions. For instance. “I’m pissed” can either mean “I’m drunk” or “I’m angry” depending on where you are and the context.
UK would always be drunk, in my experience.
Yeah, that’s one of the geographical differences I was alluding to. In Canada it can mean either depending on context.
That’s interesting to know. I guess there has been some cultural spillover in the UK so some may use it the American style, I just haven’t heard it.
Yeah, some nouns are already taken, that’s fair. Like “shafted”.