Brit here and fallen off the wagon is pretty commonplace. It's most commonly used in reference to alcoholism but it can be used for restarting anything you've vowed to stop doing
Weird. To me it sounds like it should mean the opposite, to stop something you've vowed to keep doing. Just because as a visual image the wagon goes on and the fallen off it doesn't.
@@durabelle I guess you have previously climbed on to a waggon that will take you away from the bad stuff- but then you fall off and are back where you started- in the mud!
@@durabelle Being "on the wagon" means you've stopped the detrimental thing and are getting your life on track (like, you're moving forward past the addiction). So falling "off the wagon" leaves you stuck again.
I think it was a reference to commercial water sellers of clean drinking water in towns and cities from horse drawn "water wagons" (and also anti alcohol temperance charities who would distribute it for free).
In Finnish we say 'it's raining like from Esteri's arse' 😂 (sataa kuin Esterin perseestä), Esteri being a female name. Don't ask me why though, I can't explain it.
@@evanAs a Dutch person, I think it _might_ be referring to the long part of a smoking pipe, without the part you put the tobacco in. But I have no idea if that's true, I think the original meaning of "pijpenstelen" is lost in current-day Dutch.
I recall being told by a Welsh work colleague that there isn't a literal equivalent of saying "f*** off", so the term generally used (which I'm not going to attempt to spell) to express that sentiment, was literally "go and scratch!" This may or may not have been something he invented himself.
Well, my native language is Australian English. And apparently, every single thing we say is amusing to foreigners. They must have a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock.
The hilarious ridiculousness of Australian sayings makes it so I have no idea whether "to have a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock" is a real thing or not 😂😂
@@nahuelma97 It's real ... like a few bricks short of a load; few cards short of a deck; not playing with a full deck; a few snags short of a barbie .... i.e. not all there in the head
@@nolaj114my mum used this all the time.. she’s a retired mental health nurse who used to work with care homes and she’d call fancy homes with no staff ‘fur coat no knickers’.
The Maltese version of "at the ass of the world" roughly translates to "where satan left his flip-flop". I've always enjoyed explaining that one to foreigners.
The Texan "All hat and no cattle" reminds me of one of my favourites. In the UK "all fur coat and no knickers" refers to something which outwardly looks sophisticated and impressive but is really just cheap and tacky.
One time when I was trying to use Googles 'Translate page' feature to buy stuff on Taobao, it listed skirts as 'fart curtains'. Not sure how accurate the translation is, and I doubt it reads that way to a native speaker, but it made me laugh.
My French teachers at school taught us that browsing shop windows, what we Brits call "window shopping" is "doing the window licking" (faire du lèche vitrine). I always liked that. When I see a product I like the look of, I now describe it as "window-lickin' good".
Falling off the wagon is a reference from the temperance movement era. In the late 1800s some towns used to spray down the roads with a little water to reduce the amount of dust kicked up by horses and wagons. This was done by the water wagon. So, when members of the movement of the time wanted a euphemism to tell people they weren't drinking alcohol anymore they'd say they were "on the water wagon." Of course, when any of them slipped up and drank alcohol, that was described as "falling off the water wagon." Over time it was just shortened to "off the wagon." EDIT: Also, I remember when I first learned this phrase - it was from watching the movie La Bamba over and over again when I was a kid and it was in HBO's regular rotation for a while.
I once heard an Aussie friend of mine describe her luck by saying "if it was raining castles, I'd get hit by the shithouse door", which I very much enjoyed. And my grandfather would use the phrase "she's got a hair across it" to describe a woman in a bad mood (usually my grandmother and, in fairness, she usually had a good reason to be angry).
I still have a poster that I bought in Columbia, South Carolina, back in the early 90s. It says "Shagging in South Carolina". It went down a storm in South London...everyone who saw it wanted one!
I know a few in Swedish. "Skit inte i det blå skåpet" - Don't take a shit in the blue cabinet - means, don't make a fool of yourself. "Han har inte alla hästar hemma" - He hasn't got all his horses at home - means the guy is not quite alright mentally or intellectually. "Goddag yxskaft" - 'good day axe handle'. It's an expression for someone having said something that just doesn't make sense, or gibberish. "Handtralla" - hand humming (?) (the literal translation is a bit difficult, "tralla" means something like singing without proper lyrics) - it means masturbation. "Skinnflöjt" - skin flute - I think you can guess which body part that alludes to. "Spela Allan" - Play Allan - means to pretend to be ignorant or stupid.
@@IceMetalPunk I don't know, maybe. It's like you sing la-la-la-la-la or something like that instead of proper words, but generally it's not like an artform or a performance, it's something anyone might do when they want to sing a song but don't know or care about the lyrics. It's definitely an informal thing, you don't perform anything when you "trallar", that's something you might do alone or in the company of friends, but it's not like one would go out to some kareoke bar and "tralla", nobody goes to a concert to listen to a "trall".
@@stoferb876 'Tra-la-la' is what you sing (in English) if you don't know the words. On the other hand, extras in plays used to mutter 'rhubarb rhubarb' in crowd scenes to represent background conversation.
The longer expression is "dra en handtralla", to which the closest translation I can give is "pull a draisine". It's like this old hand "pumped" vehicle you have on rail roads. Sorry, I don't know the words for the old rail road vehicles. It's tralla the noun, not the verb. So, nothing to do with singing :) Bonus fact: that tralla-noun in Swedish is the same word as the English word trolley.
A couple of irish ones are "a face that would stop a clock" for someone in a visibly foul mood, and "finger out" to mean its time to stop messing and do xyz thing. One I heard of in a Chinese Web novel was "like a duck listening to thunder" for someone who was completely lost/unable to understand something, which really tickled me
There are two lovely sayings in Uruguay & Argentina for raining heavily: 1) "Están lloviendo omnibus de pie" (It's raining standing buses) with a variation "Estån lloviendo colectivos de costado" (It's raining sided buses) 2) "Están lloviendo pinguinos de punta" (It's raining penguins... head first?). They're both bizarre and have several versions with other weird things or animals falling. None includes dogs or cats for some reason.
Here's another one in Spanish from south America (don't know if other countries also use the expression tho) "Alla dónde el diablo perdió el poncho" (where the devil lost the poncho), which means something or somewhere is too far away
@@user-bw2gd5xy3m I've heard that one too! I don't know where it's from but I grew up in Colorado and heard it a lot there. It certainly does sound like a western kind of saying. Different meaning but I also always liked, "Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent."
favourites from Lithuanian language: spoons after lunch -- it's just too late to do something about a situation like a fifth leg for a dog -- something very unnecessary, especially a person in a situation visiting the gnomes -- going to the bathroom hang pasta on ears -- lie born on the trolleybus/bus -- just something to call a person who can't close the door after themselves
It's almost as if being born in the right place makes you unable to close doors - in Dutch we say _in de kerk geboren_ (born in a church) to indicate the same thing.
In Australia we say "born in a tent" for someone who doesn't close doors. And "third wheel on a bicycle" for someone or something unnecessary for the situation. (Eg: I agreed to meet up with friends but only a dating couple turned up, so I felt like a third wheel on a bicycle.) I love "visiting the gomes" 😂😂
What gets me is my parents or grandparents would be really offended if you said 'fuck', but they would constantly use the word bugger, which basically means a rear end fuck. How exactly is that okay?
I lived half my life in the UK and half in the USA. I was 11 when we moved from the UK to South Carolina and 24 when I moved back. Not long after we moved to Charleston I came to appreciate "y'all" as the best word in the Yankese language. When I moved back to Merseyside I brought "y'all" back with me. But whenever I say y'all around here few people know what to make of it.
I’m an American from Illinois and I thought falling off the wagon was a very common American phrase that almost all Americans knew. I’m kind of surprised you had never heard it.
I'm European and I knew it, but probably for the same reason he doesn't: it's a touch old-fashioned by now. I'm 40 and I grew up consuming different media from all sorts of places and time periods, books and movies/shows including black&white era stuff.
A couple of nice visual ones: They look like they're chewing a wasp - when someone is clearly in a bad mood. Talking to god on the big telephone - being sick (for those of us who remember what telephones looked like before they were rectangular slabs).
There's a seabird called a Shag (relative of the Cormorant), on Inner Farne (an Island off the Northumberland coast) the seabirds nest there in their hundreds of thousands. I saw two Shags 'going at it' and remarked to some onlookers " oh look, two Shags shagging", I turned around and it was two elderly women. I might have said the wrong thing at that moment!
Oh, German has a TON of these. (I'm not German, but my fiancée is, so I've learned a lot of these from her.) "The yellow from the egg" - The best "I believe I spider" - I can't believe what just happened/I think I'm going crazy "I only understand train station" - I didn't understand what you just said at all "You make me fox-devils-wild" - You make me really mad/angry "To get on someone's cookie" - To really annoy someone "There we have the salad" - We're in trouble now/Now we have a problem "The bear is dancing there" - This place is a lot of fun "To perform a monkey show" - To make a big fuss/make a scene "To have a tomcat" - To be hungover "To add your mustard to it" - To add your opinion, to give your two cents "Close the lid, the monkey is dead" - That's all, end of story "To have a pig" - To be lucky "Using the salami tactic" - Softening the blow of a harsh truth by revealing it slowly, bit by bit "To have a bird" - To be insane "Quick and ready" - Worn out, exhausted, at your limit (so basically the exact opposite of what the phrase says) "It's all in butter" - It's all good, everything's fine "Give me the butter with the fish" - Be more honest with me, or give me more effort "Someone is roasting a stork for me" - An expression of surprise/disbelief "That doesn't make the cabbage fat" - It won't make a difference "You already saw horses vomiting" - Stranger things have happened Finnish has a few too (I'm also not Finnish, but I used to live there) "To circle something like a cat circles hot porridge" - To dance around a topic without directly addressing it "The cat wants the fish, but doesn't want to get his/her paws wet" - Someone wants something, but doesn't want to put the effort into getting it "Let me show you where a chicken pees from" - Let me show you how it's done "To paint the devil on the wall" - To catastrophise/make a big deal out of something small "Shooting flies with cannons" - Putting a lot of effort into achieving something impossible, or making a simple task more difficult than it should be "Disappeared like a fart in the Sahara" - Disappeared into thin air, vanished completely without a trace "To run with your head as your third leg" - To be in a hurry "To travel as a rabbit" - To travel on public transport without paying the fare "A drop won't kill you and you can't drown in a bucket" - Have some more alcohol "Like perfume on a meatball" - Two things that don't go together at all "I'm not on the back of a rabbit" - I'm not in any hurry "By throwing it" - With little or no effort required "Other land blueberry, own land strawberry" - Foreign places are nice, but home is nicer (and yes, it is that grammatically broken in the original Finnish too) "To read something like the Devil reads the Bible" - To read it carefully, looking for loopholes "The horses will run away" - Your flies are open
reminded of the "middle of nowhere" types of ones, in finland it is common to say when something is in the middle of nowhere it is in nevada. no, i do not know why nevada is our example for this. but im sure many americans especially would find it confusing
I‘m just taking a wild guess, but „Nevada“ can sound like „never da“. „da“ is German for „there“, so it would be some weird Denglisch-shit. That‘s what we call German word that have been unnecessarily turned into English.
In Australia we say "out past Woop-Woop" or "back of Woop-Woop". I don't know why it's Woop-Woop. It's not a real place. In NZ we say "out in the wops". Both mean a really long way away or that a place is quite isolated and far from towns/cities.
@@tomrogue13where they gen-z Poles or something? It's definitely a thing. If you google that phrase, you should get some results from wiktionary, but also imdb and some book-relates sites, as it's been used for movies, series and book titles
In Spanish: "si mi abuela tuviera ruedas seria una bicicleta" - If my grandmother had wheels she would've been a bike. It means if things happened differently then of course they would be different so why are you even suggesting it. Although calling someone a 'bike' in English can have other conotations...
My favorite Danish saying translates to "You're like a nun with a sailors manhood" but a lot more.. explicit. It basically means that you have absolutely no clue of what you're doing.
@@treefrog101 Remember the "nutids r". If you're writing something like "I'm doing something" for example "I'm learning Danish" there should be an "r" at the end of the word, so it would be "Jeg lærer dansk"
@@maddythelion Yes true, but I have also seen it used to describe someone that is trying to look sophisticated and failing. But, you're right it's more used for an older woman trying to wear a young woman's style and failing.
I’m five minutes in and I can’t stop laughing, so I’ll contribute with a Swedish idiom. This one was my American teacher’s favourite: ”ingen fara på taket” (literally: no danger on the roof) meaning there is no immidiate danger. Quite a strange one when you think about it
Older british slang used "shot the cat" to refer to vomiting from too much alcohol. I am now wondering why cats and alcohol got combined. See also "3 sheets to the wind" (cheerfully careless drunk) "put to bed in a wheelbarrow" unable to stand drunk. "More than half cut" unable to reason properly due to drink. English drinking slang is its own wonderful topic.
"3 sheets to the wind" is a nautical one - like a lot of British English sayings - sheets being the ropes which control the sails. There are a couple of different interpretations of the exact metaphor - either being driven hard by a storm, or just being completely out of control. Another few are "show them the ropes" (show the the basics of a job or technique), "sailing close to the wind" (taking a risky / pushing-it - literally sailing with the wind coming almost from one side which is risky for various reasons) and being "taken aback" (caught by surprise literally on a tall ship the wind coming from the front of the ship instead of the back - usually because the wind changes unexpectedly or it's been steered badly, which is dangerous and can end up breaking the masts) - literally if you sail too close to the wind, you could end up being taken aback. "rudderless" is another for being without direction or purpose.
@@Tim_Small"sheets to the wind" seems to indicate that the ropes, therefore the sails, are slack, and the wind will catch them erratically making the ship lurch and swing like a drunkard's walk.
In Flemish Dutch (I think it also exists in Dutch from the Netherlands, but I'm not sure) "'T is als een engeltje die op je tong piest" = It's like an angel pissing on your tongue. It means something is delicious, mainly used for drinks or more fluid foods (like sauces, soups,..). I never use it, but my mum does. I absolutely hate it when she does, as I can't help but actually picture the scene in my head and it's disgusting to me.
I'm Canadian from southern Ontario, and we referred to Masturbation, as "I've been dating Miss Michigan" because the palm of your right hand looks like lower peninsula of the State of Michigan.
This has mostly fallen out of usage (I suppose because fewer people do outdoor rural jobs), but dad (Kent, UK) used to use "sparrow fart" as slang for unreasonably early in the morning (if the question was directly asking for a time "half past sparrow fart" might be the response).
@@Luubelaar @utha2665 I have a hunch that "He went arse over tit" - fell over spectacularly / tumbled and "That went tits up" - went wrong (fell flat on its back) are also shared between British English (South East mainly I think) and Australia? Both are falling out of usage here I think unfortunately...
My mom had a book filled with Swedish idioms and their literal English translations for amusement so we have quite a few, especially if you read many in a row (can't find it now though so it might be out of print.) Here are a few classics: "Now they've taken a crap in the blue cabinet". Someone has done a mistake or embarrassed themselves to a degree where they can't hide it or take it back. "To get stuck with the beard in the mailbox". You're in trouble, usually self-inflicted. "There's a dog buried here" Something is amiss. "To throw a goat's eye at something". Simply means you will have a closer look at it (the goat eye comes from sounding similar to an old Swedish word that meant "to watch/to guard") Finally if someone is a bit stupid you can say that they're "not the sharpest knife in the drawer" or that "the elevator doesn't go to the top". 😅
To the stupidity ones, you can also add many, many versions with similar constructions like "he doesn't have all horses at home", "does't have all the cups in the cabinet". And there is also "the light is on, but there is no one at home". Etc. :)
One weird thing about Icelandic is that the word "Rassgat" ="Asshole" is used as a terms of endearment mostly meaning "Cute" and it's mostly used for babies and puppies and kittens - A Grandmother might say about her cute grandchildren "Ó þau eru svo mikil rassgöt" which directly translated would be "Oh they are such assholes" but what it really means in Icelandic is more like "Oh aren't they cute". This of course means you never call someone in Iceland " Rassgat" or an "Asshole" and mean it negatively cause it sounds as if you are saying isn't he or she, cute.
@@IceMetalPunk Yes it's exactly like the English word, it can simply be a description of the body part but when used metaphorically it's not negative like in English.
Oh that's interesting! I know a Danish owl-related idiom goes "there are no owls in the bog" meaning there's nothing suspicious going on, or everything is normal. Conversely when there *are* owls in the bog, something strange is afoot.
You've completely come up with something of your own here. The expression is "I sense owls in the bog", and it means, on the contrary, that something is shady, suspicious, not quite as it should be. Owls in the forest are, as you say, completely normal, but we don't need an expression to say that everything is normal or obvious really?🤔
From the Midwest, US and "fallen off the wagon" is something I hear all the time. Slightly different meaning but similar sound "jumping on the bandwagon" is doing something just because it's popular
Is anyone else familiar with "by the bird with the long eyelashes" to mean you're lost? The cry of the fookawi bird, which has such long eyelashes that it flies around calling "where the fookawi, where the fookawi"? Edit, another likely even more obscure "come back on an eerie-wig" to mean you aren't sure how or when you'll manage to get home but it will work itself out somehow.
"Tirar la casa por la ventana", which translates to _to throw the house through the window_ in Spain means to go further and beyond with something. For instance, going on vacation and going to expensive restaurants all the time (when you don't use to), organizing an extravagant party or giving a very generous gift. Not sure if other Spanish speaking countries use it, though.
When you're totally lost in Norway, you're "ute på bærtur" picking berries. When lost in Denmark, however, you're on "Lars Tyndskid's Marker", gone to the Fields of Lars Diarrhea.
Evan ! Your videos have such excellent sound quality - wonderful consistency always. What microphone does you use? Especially the small mic you wear. Thanks much !
I'm a Gen X American and "falling off the wagon" is, or was, a well-understood idiom. Maybe it's too out-of-use in today's world? Evan, tell me if you've ever heard "numpty" in the UK! I like it, and wish we had that insult here in the US 😂
Allegedly: "N.O.N.C.E. comes from HMP Wakefield at the turn of the century and was marked on the cell card of any prisoner who may have been in danger of violence from other prisoners - it means ‘Not On Normal Courtyard Exercise’. So that staff would not open their doors when other prisoners were out." e.g. paedophile or informer etc.
“All hat and no cattle” sounds like our “all tip and no iceberg”. My favourite that is local just to Sydney, Australia is “crook as Rookwood”. Crook is Aussie slang for ill/ailing and Rookwood is a necropolis in Sydney, the largest in the southern hemisphere. So if you’re feeling really ill and like you’re “on death’s doorstep” then you are “crook as Rookwood”.
I'll leave some Spanish ones: "Me cago en la leche" means "I shit in the milk". It is used to express discontent, or being anoyed by something. "No tengo el horno para bollos" means "I don't have the oven ready for paistries". It is used to say that you don't want anyone to bother you. And an aditional one in Basque: "Zozoak beleari ipurbeltz" means "The blackbird says to the raven that it has a black ass". It has the same meaning as "pot calling the kettle back"
In Irish, instead of saying "that is just the tip of the iceberg" , we say: "that is but a strawberry in the mouth of a bull (níl ansin ach sú talún i mbéal an bulláin)" 🍓
It's not a common expression, but the Danish song Hvalen Hvalborg has several expressions in the chorus for "Everything has an End, but BLANK has two." The word changes in each: Earthworm, Roundworm, and finally "Everything has an End, a Whale only has one. Oh but Hvalborg ... What an end!"
Afrikaans has so many weird ones 😂 “Moenie die hoender ruk nie” - don’t shake the chicken. This means don’t overdo it. “Dis n feit soos n koei” - it’s a fact like a cow. Meaning you can’t disagree with it. “N aap in die mou he” - havinga monkey up your sleeve. Meaning you have a trick up your sleeve. “Lepel in die dak steek”- sticking a spoon in the roof. Meaning someone is about to die or is dead And so many more 😂 And we also have in South Africa generally “now, now now and just now” all meaning different things, none of which is actually now 😂
In Finnish, if people say that they "fell of the wagon" (putosin kärryiltä), it means that they weren't able to follow an explanation to the end. Also if you watch a movie and don't really concentrate and then at some point realize that you don't understand the plot anymore, then you fell of the wagon. It means that sort of thing. That saying has nothing to do with alcohol here. One of my favorite Finnish sayings is "to go ass first up a tree" (mennä perse eellä puuhun). It means doing something in a completely wrong way.
Aussie here: Yes, we know about falling off the wagon. We also say "pushing shit up hill" to mean it's a task with no hope of success. And "they're pushing up daisies" to mean that person is dead. And "up at sparrow's fart" to mean being up at dawn.
A few Bolivian Spanish ones (some are used in other Spanish-speaking countries, some have a completely different meaning: - "Faltar diez centavos para el peso" - To be missing ten cents for a full Peso, meaning to fall short of achieving something, but only just - For far away places: "Donde el diablo perdió el poncho" (someone already mentioned it), "donde la Coca-cola llega sin gas" (where the Coke arrives flat, uncarbonated), "donde el viento llega cansado" (where the wind arrives tired), "allá en Chumbivillcas" (over there in Chumbivillcas - a small, lost town in Peru) - "Estaba verga" (I/he/she was dick, meaning I/he/she was very drunk) - "Sufrir como madre soltera" (to suffer like a single mom, to suffer too much, disproportionately) - "No es como soplar y hacer botellas" (It's not like blowing and making bottles, meaning, it's a complicated task, don't overestimate your capabilites) These are in pure Spanish, there's a whole lot which use Ayamara, Quechua or Guarai words, depending on the region
"Am Arsch der Welt" is that exact thing, we also have it as in "at the ass of the world". Other variations exist: "Wo der Pfeffer wächst" - "where the pepper grows" (as a likely reference to south asia and indian the subcontinent); "in der Pampa" - "in the Pampas" (referring to the grasslands in South America) - so both regions far away from here. 6:29 oh and one more: "In der Walachei" - "in Walochia(?)" a grassland in Hungary or Romania (sorry I'm not sure where actually)
In Poland the middle of nowhere is called "a place behind the ass" (zadupie). But if it's especially remote and we want to emphasize it we can say "a place where the dogs bark with their asses" (although this one might be regional).
the catalan version of "yeah sure whatever, don't believe you" is "demà m'afaitaràs" which is literally translated as "you're going to shave me tomorrow". still haven't worked out why but it's a favourite of mine.
I apparently spend enough time reading to know a lot of the English ones lol. Some Finnish: Juosten kustu = pissed while running - something that's been done haphazardly/badly Rekkamiehen hymy = truck driver's smile - a**crack that peeks out from too low slung trousers Kissanristiäiset = cat's christening/naming party - a party or an event one considers unimportant Kiivetä perse edellä puuhun = to climb up a tree a** first - do something backwards or in a needlessly complicated manner Kreivin aikaan = at the Count's time - when something happens at just the right moment, this is based on an actual Count that did a lot of societal and political changes in the 1600s Jeesustella = to Jesus around - to be sanctimonious
Ste-Éloingée-de-la-Carte (Saint Far From the Map) or St-Profond-des-Creux (Saint Peed and Far), plays on the fact that a large number of municipalities in Québec are named after saints.
another sausage one from the netherlands is "of je worst lust", or "[asking] if you like sausage", said when you asked someone a question but they didn't pay attention/ didn't hear it so they're asking you to repeat yourself
A childhood favorite exclamation of surprise (swedish, but actually norwegian); "Dra mig baklänges ända in i fågelholken." It comes from a norwegian stop action movie made in 1975, called "Flåklypa Grand Prix". (The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix) Very much worth a watch if you can find it. One of Norway's internationally most successful movies. Translated into english, it becomes: "Pull me backwards all the way into the birdhouse." The character saying it in the movie is an anthropomised magpie (bird), which makes it, perhaps, make a little more sense...?
In Costa Rica: "where the devil lost his jacket" = the middle of nowhere "Go wash your ass" = stop bothering me with your bullshit "got on the flying pancake" = took the moral high ground "to the pepper?" = for real?
Us, portuguese ppl, are rly creative when it comes to devil´s tango related expresions. For instance there´s "bater a punheta " punheta is the name of a dish so we say "to hit the punheta" also we say "comer" (eat, to eat someone, x and y are eating themselves) "fazer conchinha" (make shell in a cute way) "enrolar-se" (same thing as eat but rolling)
we have an idiom in belgian french, to say that some place is far away in bumfuck nowhere. We say it's in "hout'si'plu" which in walloon means "where it rains" It's actually a small village at the german border, and it's very funny because first, as belgium is very small, you are never further than a 2 hours drive from hout'si'plu, and calling a specific place in belgium "where it rains" is absolutely hilarious to me, as if it didn't rain everywhere else too
Not from the US but the Shag dance (Colligate shag) which is a form was swing dancing is so much fun. I’ve taken a few shag classes and the class constantly joke about the name which makes it even better.
In Danish, there are 3 idioms for something far away. First is: "Where the crows turn", as in turn around and fly back. Second is: "Langbortistan", which translates to "Far-away-i-stan", similar to the "-stan" countries such as Kazakhstan in eastern europe and asia. Third is: "Lars tyndskid's mark", which translates to "Lars Diarrhea-Shit's acre"
Just out of interest, what does the third one mean in terms of its use? How would it be used? I ask because a "skid mark" in English has its own meaning and I'm wondering if there's some linguistic cross-over going on.
@@StormhavenGaming "Lars" is a common danish name and "tyndskid" literally translates to "thin shit" which means diarrhea. "Skid" means "shit" in danish, and I think you're right that linguistically it has a connection to the English word skid, but has since taken a more overt meaning. "Mark" in danish means planes, farmland or acre, it's the same word you find in Den*mark*, I can imagine it might have some connection to the English word for a mark, but the meaning is very different. If you were to translate English mark to danish today it would be "mærke" with skid mark being "skridmærke". Back to the idiom, the idea is that you're so far out in the boonies that you're literally standing on the well fertilized farmland of some farmer named Lars. I think an American expression that is the most similar would be "bumfuck nowhere", as in, you've driven us to bumfuck nowhere and my phone's got no signal.
In Finnish, if something is "pissed while running" (pissed as in urinated, not angry or drunk), it means it's made poorly, or that its design is shoddy. I guess the literal translation would be more like "runningly pissed".
I didn't know "I need to go freshen up" was an Irish thing. That's usually what my dad says (that and "I'm going to powder my nose"). His grandmother came from Ireland, and he grew up around a lot of Irish Americans, so it makes sense.
Brazilian Portuguese: "na p*ta que o pariu" - "at the b*tch who birthed you" (Where is that place? Really far away/somewhere shady and far away. It's sometimes an insult of someone's mother depending on how you use it) "negócio" - "business" (regional slang, means "thing" aswell) "Agora a cobra vai fumar" - "Now the snake will smoke" (now I'll take action, I will act and things will really happen, even though it's very unexpected) "entrar no bonde andando" - "to enter the moving tram" (To interrupt or join a conversation you weren't invited to, I think this slang is pretty old though) "afogar o ganso" - "to drown the goose" (I would rather not describe what this is but it is NSFW)
The Swedish one was completely new to me (as a Swede). Never ever heard "to build a teddy bear (bygga en nalle(björn)?)" before, so this was interesting
A cheese toastie has both slices of bread! Usually cooked on a panini press or a toastie machine. Cheese on toast (or roasted cheese if you're a weapon) only has one slice - very important distinction!
![Twenty One Pilots - “The Line” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E2Rj2gQAyPA/mqdefault.jpg)
Evan, I’m FLOORED you’re unfamiliar with “fall off the wagon”
Yes, my clog broke as well! I thought this was a common saying.
agreed, its in so much american pop culture even if he didn’t grow up around people who said that
I've heard it lots but never once looked up what it meant!
If you're 'On the wagon' then you're no longer drinking alcohol, usually because you have a problem. From that you get 'falling off the wagon.'
I think it's kind of an old expression.
And maybe they don't say it in New Joisey.
Brit here and fallen off the wagon is pretty commonplace. It's most commonly used in reference to alcoholism but it can be used for restarting anything you've vowed to stop doing
Weird. To me it sounds like it should mean the opposite, to stop something you've vowed to keep doing. Just because as a visual image the wagon goes on and the fallen off it doesn't.
@@durabelle I guess you have previously climbed on to a waggon that will take you away from the bad stuff- but then you fall off and are back where you started- in the mud!
@@carolineskipper6976 Ah, that makes sense!
@@durabelle Being "on the wagon" means you've stopped the detrimental thing and are getting your life on track (like, you're moving forward past the addiction). So falling "off the wagon" leaves you stuck again.
I think it was a reference to commercial water sellers of clean drinking water in towns and cities from horse drawn "water wagons" (and also anti alcohol temperance charities who would distribute it for free).
In Welsh instead of saying 'its raining cats and dogs' to mean heavy rain, we say 'it's raining old ladies and walking sticks'
In Dutch we say "it's raining pipe stems".
@@ConsciousAtoms pipe stems?
In Finnish we say 'it's raining like from Esteri's arse' 😂 (sataa kuin Esterin perseestä), Esteri being a female name. Don't ask me why though, I can't explain it.
@@evanAs a Dutch person, I think it _might_ be referring to the long part of a smoking pipe, without the part you put the tobacco in. But I have no idea if that's true, I think the original meaning of "pijpenstelen" is lost in current-day Dutch.
I recall being told by a Welsh work colleague that there isn't a literal equivalent of saying "f*** off", so the term generally used (which I'm not going to attempt to spell) to express that sentiment, was literally "go and scratch!" This may or may not have been something he invented himself.
Well, my native language is Australian English. And apparently, every single thing we say is amusing to foreigners. They must have a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock.
We wouldn't think it was so hilarious if you weren't always talking about fucking spiders 😂
The hilarious ridiculousness of Australian sayings makes it so I have no idea whether "to have a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock" is a real thing or not 😂😂
And to get things straight: There are no kangaroos in Austria!!!!!
@@nahuelma97 It's real ... like a few bricks short of a load; few cards short of a deck; not playing with a full deck; a few snags short of a barbie .... i.e. not all there in the head
Not the full shilling. A few sandwiches short of a picnic.
'All hat and no cattle' would become 'All mouth and no trousers' in the UK.
"All mouth, no trousers" just sounds like a good party to me....
"All fur coat and no knickers" for a pretentious woman.
I think that one is more, “talks big but can’t back it up.”
In country Australia I've heard their belt is cardboard for the same thing
@@nolaj114my mum used this all the time.. she’s a retired mental health nurse who used to work with care homes and she’d call fancy homes with no staff ‘fur coat no knickers’.
The Maltese version of "at the ass of the world" roughly translates to "where satan left his flip-flop". I've always enjoyed explaining that one to foreigners.
In Argentina it's "where the devil lost his poncho"
In Poland it's: "where the dogs bark with their asses", or: "where the devil says goodnight"
Brazilian portuguese: Where Judas lost his boots
Australia: buttfuck Idaho or buttfuck no where.
The hungarian is "a halál faszán túl" literally "over the death's dick"
A cheese toastie is not the same as cheese-on-toast.
I meeeeeeeeeean
@@evan One is literally half of the other. The distinction is extremely important.
@@evan They're being pretty pedantic, but they're not wrong!
@@graemecowie Is an open-faced sandwich a sandwich? And what if it's an open-faced hot dog? With taco meat?
@@IceMetalPunk No.
In Greece, when someone makes a dumb or not well-thought out decision we say "you are going to the cucumbers naked". 😂
I lived in Thessaloniki for over a year and never heard this. I wish I did!
@@matthewtrearty2082 Well, it probably means that you didn't do anything stupid enough to deserve the idiom, so that's that...
I mean it seems pointless to go to the cucumbers only to get undressed again..
Similar but not exactly slang: "Your going barefoot to the thorns" and "You're going with a wax nose in the oven".
The Texan "All hat and no cattle" reminds me of one of my favourites. In the UK "all fur coat and no knickers" refers to something which outwardly looks sophisticated and impressive but is really just cheap and tacky.
Like a chav in designer clothing. Gucci trackies, roll up ciggies and three teeth
in scotland we have loads. insults are ""you toob", "you fud" and "you bawbag" (ballbag) are common.
One time when I was trying to use Googles 'Translate page' feature to buy stuff on Taobao, it listed skirts as 'fart curtains'. Not sure how accurate the translation is, and I doubt it reads that way to a native speaker, but it made me laugh.
My French teachers at school taught us that browsing shop windows, what we Brits call "window shopping" is "doing the window licking" (faire du lèche vitrine). I always liked that. When I see a product I like the look of, I now describe it as "window-lickin' good".
In Spain (don't known if in Lat Am) instead of saying "an remote place", we say "where Christ lost the slipper/lighter"
Falling off the wagon is a reference from the temperance movement era. In the late 1800s some towns used to spray down the roads with a little water to reduce the amount of dust kicked up by horses and wagons. This was done by the water wagon. So, when members of the movement of the time wanted a euphemism to tell people they weren't drinking alcohol anymore they'd say they were "on the water wagon." Of course, when any of them slipped up and drank alcohol, that was described as "falling off the water wagon." Over time it was just shortened to "off the wagon." EDIT: Also, I remember when I first learned this phrase - it was from watching the movie La Bamba over and over again when I was a kid and it was in HBO's regular rotation for a while.
I once heard an Aussie friend of mine describe her luck by saying "if it was raining castles, I'd get hit by the shithouse door", which I very much enjoyed.
And my grandfather would use the phrase "she's got a hair across it" to describe a woman in a bad mood (usually my grandmother and, in fairness, she usually had a good reason to be angry).
Woohoo! I got featured in an Evan Edinger video!
hey congrats
I still have a poster that I bought in Columbia, South Carolina, back in the early 90s. It says "Shagging in South Carolina". It went down a storm in South London...everyone who saw it wanted one!
I know a few in Swedish. "Skit inte i det blå skåpet" - Don't take a shit in the blue cabinet - means, don't make a fool of yourself. "Han har inte alla hästar hemma" - He hasn't got all his horses at home - means the guy is not quite alright mentally or intellectually. "Goddag yxskaft" - 'good day axe handle'. It's an expression for someone having said something that just doesn't make sense, or gibberish. "Handtralla" - hand humming (?) (the literal translation is a bit difficult, "tralla" means something like singing without proper lyrics) - it means masturbation. "Skinnflöjt" - skin flute - I think you can guess which body part that alludes to. "Spela Allan" - Play Allan - means to pretend to be ignorant or stupid.
Would "tralla" better translate as "scatting" maybe? Also, I believe I've heard "skin flute" in English as well.
@@IceMetalPunk I don't know, maybe. It's like you sing la-la-la-la-la or something like that instead of proper words, but generally it's not like an artform or a performance, it's something anyone might do when they want to sing a song but don't know or care about the lyrics. It's definitely an informal thing, you don't perform anything when you "trallar", that's something you might do alone or in the company of friends, but it's not like one would go out to some kareoke bar and "tralla", nobody goes to a concert to listen to a "trall".
@@stoferb876 'Tra-la-la' is what you sing (in English) if you don't know the words. On the other hand, extras in plays used to mutter 'rhubarb rhubarb' in crowd scenes to represent background conversation.
The longer expression is "dra en handtralla", to which the closest translation I can give is "pull a draisine". It's like this old hand "pumped" vehicle you have on rail roads. Sorry, I don't know the words for the old rail road vehicles. It's tralla the noun, not the verb. So, nothing to do with singing :)
Bonus fact: that tralla-noun in Swedish is the same word as the English word trolley.
@@Narnendil Thank you, didn't know that. But know that you say it I've heard about that kind of "tralla".
I always enjoy the Ask Reddit videos on this channel. I always learn something interesting from them.
Thanks I do try and choose ones that I personally learn something from or find interesting :)
A couple of irish ones are "a face that would stop a clock" for someone in a visibly foul mood, and "finger out" to mean its time to stop messing and do xyz thing. One I heard of in a Chinese Web novel was "like a duck listening to thunder" for someone who was completely lost/unable to understand something, which really tickled me
I always liked “a face like a slapped arse.” A grumpy or sulky-looking person
There are two lovely sayings in Uruguay & Argentina for raining heavily: 1) "Están lloviendo omnibus de pie" (It's raining standing buses) with a variation "Estån lloviendo colectivos de costado" (It's raining sided buses) 2) "Están lloviendo pinguinos de punta" (It's raining penguins... head first?). They're both bizarre and have several versions with other weird things or animals falling. None includes dogs or cats for some reason.
In Norway we use woodpeckers instead of penguins for rain. Painful imagery.
Here's another one in Spanish from south America (don't know if other countries also use the expression tho)
"Alla dónde el diablo perdió el poncho" (where the devil lost the poncho), which means something or somewhere is too far away
@@KibitoAkuya Oh yes! I know this one! My grandmother used it a lot xD
“Cho trang ri triùir ann an leabaidh” is Scottish Gaelic for “As busy as three in a bed”.
That's a good one. In America at least, we have, "As busy as a one-armed paper hanger." As in trying to put up wallpaper with one hand.
@@kellyphx Also in the US (but I can't remember where I heard it from), I've heard "busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest."
@@user-bw2gd5xy3m I've heard that one too! I don't know where it's from but I grew up in Colorado and heard it a lot there. It certainly does sound like a western kind of saying. Different meaning but I also always liked, "Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent."
I will now say I am building a teddy bear every time I have to poop.
In Amsterdam we say we're going to knit a brown sweater.
I love the teddy bear one too though.
@@how2pick4name I love that one. That is definitely being incorporated into my daily speech. Thank you!
have you heard ' a turtle head is crowning' ? ( if you haven't heard THAT, crowning means put your head above water..
favourites from Lithuanian language:
spoons after lunch -- it's just too late to do something about a situation
like a fifth leg for a dog -- something very unnecessary, especially a person in a situation
visiting the gnomes -- going to the bathroom
hang pasta on ears -- lie
born on the trolleybus/bus -- just something to call a person who can't close the door after themselves
It's almost as if being born in the right place makes you unable to close doors - in Dutch we say _in de kerk geboren_ (born in a church) to indicate the same thing.
In Australia we say "born in a tent" for someone who doesn't close doors.
And "third wheel on a bicycle" for someone or something unnecessary for the situation. (Eg: I agreed to meet up with friends but only a dating couple turned up, so I felt like a third wheel on a bicycle.)
I love "visiting the gomes" 😂😂
In the UK, it's those born in a barn that can't close doors! 😅
US: "were you raised in a barn?" = "shut the door you left open!"
I love "visiting the gnomes"!
A cheese toastie is basically a toasted cheese sandwich. Cheese on top of one slice of bread is cheese on toast.
In Brazil we say "the kind of thing that makes the hole drop from the ass", which expresses surprise and indignation.
"You can only s**t with the a**e you've got" - It is what it is, you can only do so much.
I love this one! Where's it from?
@@pinkpolly88 northern England
I say the arse-end of nowhere (I live in cornwall) and my mum still tells me off for saying arse... I'm 40 😂
What gets me is my parents or grandparents would be really offended if you said 'fuck', but they would constantly use the word bugger, which basically means a rear end fuck. How exactly is that okay?
I lived half my life in the UK and half in the USA. I was 11 when we moved from the UK to South Carolina and 24 when I moved back. Not long after we moved to Charleston I came to appreciate "y'all" as the best word in the Yankese language. When I moved back to Merseyside I brought "y'all" back with me. But whenever I say y'all around here few people know what to make of it.
I’m an American from Illinois and I thought falling off the wagon was a very common American phrase that almost all Americans knew. I’m kind of surprised you had never heard it.
I'm European and I knew it, but probably for the same reason he doesn't: it's a touch old-fashioned by now. I'm 40 and I grew up consuming different media from all sorts of places and time periods, books and movies/shows including black&white era stuff.
A couple of nice visual ones: They look like they're chewing a wasp - when someone is clearly in a bad mood. Talking to god on the big telephone - being sick (for those of us who remember what telephones looked like before they were rectangular slabs).
"Speaking Norwegian to the porcelain phone"
~Finland
Big _white_ telephone. 🙂
"Praying to the porcelain God"
"Technicolor Yawning"
"Giving a speech in Welsh"
@@wessexdruid7598 Come now, think of those who still have their 70s bathroom suite.
"Calling Ralph on the porcelain telephone"
There's a seabird called a Shag (relative of the Cormorant), on Inner Farne (an Island off the Northumberland coast) the seabirds nest there in their hundreds of thousands. I saw two Shags 'going at it' and remarked to some onlookers " oh look, two Shags shagging", I turned around and it was two elderly women. I might have said the wrong thing at that moment!
first one that comes to mind for english is ‘no balls’ daring someone 😭😭
In Finnish we 'lift the cat onto the table' when it's time to have a serious discussion about something. (Nostetaan kissa pöydälle.)
Oh, German has a TON of these. (I'm not German, but my fiancée is, so I've learned a lot of these from her.)
"The yellow from the egg" - The best
"I believe I spider" - I can't believe what just happened/I think I'm going crazy
"I only understand train station" - I didn't understand what you just said at all
"You make me fox-devils-wild" - You make me really mad/angry
"To get on someone's cookie" - To really annoy someone
"There we have the salad" - We're in trouble now/Now we have a problem
"The bear is dancing there" - This place is a lot of fun
"To perform a monkey show" - To make a big fuss/make a scene
"To have a tomcat" - To be hungover
"To add your mustard to it" - To add your opinion, to give your two cents
"Close the lid, the monkey is dead" - That's all, end of story
"To have a pig" - To be lucky
"Using the salami tactic" - Softening the blow of a harsh truth by revealing it slowly, bit by bit
"To have a bird" - To be insane
"Quick and ready" - Worn out, exhausted, at your limit (so basically the exact opposite of what the phrase says)
"It's all in butter" - It's all good, everything's fine
"Give me the butter with the fish" - Be more honest with me, or give me more effort
"Someone is roasting a stork for me" - An expression of surprise/disbelief
"That doesn't make the cabbage fat" - It won't make a difference
"You already saw horses vomiting" - Stranger things have happened
Finnish has a few too (I'm also not Finnish, but I used to live there)
"To circle something like a cat circles hot porridge" - To dance around a topic without directly addressing it
"The cat wants the fish, but doesn't want to get his/her paws wet" - Someone wants something, but doesn't want to put the effort into getting it
"Let me show you where a chicken pees from" - Let me show you how it's done
"To paint the devil on the wall" - To catastrophise/make a big deal out of something small
"Shooting flies with cannons" - Putting a lot of effort into achieving something impossible, or making a simple task more difficult than it should be
"Disappeared like a fart in the Sahara" - Disappeared into thin air, vanished completely without a trace
"To run with your head as your third leg" - To be in a hurry
"To travel as a rabbit" - To travel on public transport without paying the fare
"A drop won't kill you and you can't drown in a bucket" - Have some more alcohol
"Like perfume on a meatball" - Two things that don't go together at all
"I'm not on the back of a rabbit" - I'm not in any hurry
"By throwing it" - With little or no effort required
"Other land blueberry, own land strawberry" - Foreign places are nice, but home is nicer (and yes, it is that grammatically broken in the original Finnish too)
"To read something like the Devil reads the Bible" - To read it carefully, looking for loopholes
"The horses will run away" - Your flies are open
reminded of the "middle of nowhere" types of ones, in finland it is common to say when something is in the middle of nowhere it is in nevada. no, i do not know why nevada is our example for this. but im sure many americans especially would find it confusing
I‘m just taking a wild guess, but „Nevada“ can sound like „never da“. „da“ is German for „there“, so it would be some weird Denglisch-shit. That‘s what we call German word that have been unnecessarily turned into English.
I've never been to Nevada, but my understanding of it is that it's mostly empty desert, so that saying kind of does make sense to me.
In Polish I heard they say gdzie diabeł mówi dobranoc, where the devil says goodnight. But a few Poles have told me they never head of it
In Australia we say "out past Woop-Woop" or "back of Woop-Woop". I don't know why it's Woop-Woop. It's not a real place.
In NZ we say "out in the wops".
Both mean a really long way away or that a place is quite isolated and far from towns/cities.
@@tomrogue13where they gen-z Poles or something? It's definitely a thing. If you google that phrase, you should get some results from wiktionary, but also imdb and some book-relates sites, as it's been used for movies, series and book titles
"the place where the wolves fuck" or "behind god's legs" are Croatian idioms for a far away remote place
Polish one is even worse "where dogs bark with their asses" i.e. so far that logic doesn't exist
In Spanish: "si mi abuela tuviera ruedas seria una bicicleta" - If my grandmother had wheels she would've been a bike.
It means if things happened differently then of course they would be different so why are you even suggesting it.
Although calling someone a 'bike' in English can have other conotations...
Gino D'Acampo famously said this on The Morning Show once when Holly made a somewhat unwelcome observation about his recipe.
If your Aunt had balls, she'd be your Uncle
My favorite Danish saying translates to "You're like a nun with a sailors manhood" but a lot more.. explicit. It basically means that you have absolutely no clue of what you're doing.
Jeg lære dansk like ✍🏼✍🏼✍🏼
@@treefrog101 Remember the "nutids r". If you're writing something like "I'm doing something" for example "I'm learning Danish" there should be an "r" at the end of the word, so it would be "Jeg lærer dansk"
futanari?
@@Xnoob545 futanari?
All fur coat and no knickers...someone trying to look sophisticated but are actually as common as muck..😄👍🇬🇧
Another saying is "Mutton dressed as lamb", or "making a silk purse from a pigs ear".
@@utha2665 "Mutton dressed as lamb" means an older woman dressed in a much younger style.
@@maddythelion Yes true, but I have also seen it used to describe someone that is trying to look sophisticated and failing. But, you're right it's more used for an older woman trying to wear a young woman's style and failing.
I wouldn't know or have a frame of reference.
Nice to see how the languages evolve
I’m five minutes in and I can’t stop laughing, so I’ll contribute with a Swedish idiom. This one was my American teacher’s favourite: ”ingen fara på taket” (literally: no danger on the roof) meaning there is no immidiate danger. Quite a strange one when you think about it
This must be one of the most fun Evan videos ever - you left me very smiley
Older british slang used "shot the cat" to refer to vomiting from too much alcohol. I am now wondering why cats and alcohol got combined.
See also "3 sheets to the wind" (cheerfully careless drunk) "put to bed in a wheelbarrow" unable to stand drunk. "More than half cut" unable to reason properly due to drink.
English drinking slang is its own wonderful topic.
Australian - that would be "painting a tiger" or a "technicolour yawn".
"3 sheets to the wind" is a nautical one - like a lot of British English sayings - sheets being the ropes which control the sails. There are a couple of different interpretations of the exact metaphor - either being driven hard by a storm, or just being completely out of control. Another few are "show them the ropes" (show the the basics of a job or technique), "sailing close to the wind" (taking a risky / pushing-it - literally sailing with the wind coming almost from one side which is risky for various reasons) and being "taken aback" (caught by surprise literally on a tall ship the wind coming from the front of the ship instead of the back - usually because the wind changes unexpectedly or it's been steered badly, which is dangerous and can end up breaking the masts) - literally if you sail too close to the wind, you could end up being taken aback. "rudderless" is another for being without direction or purpose.
@@Tim_Small"sheets to the wind" seems to indicate that the ropes, therefore the sails, are slack, and the wind will catch them erratically making the ship lurch and swing like a drunkard's walk.
here is an old one, for the young uns.... guy on seat at bar, with really bad beer... cat walks in... tells the barman his beer has arrived!!!
In Flemish Dutch (I think it also exists in Dutch from the Netherlands, but I'm not sure)
"'T is als een engeltje die op je tong piest" = It's like an angel pissing on your tongue.
It means something is delicious, mainly used for drinks or more fluid foods (like sauces, soups,..).
I never use it, but my mum does. I absolutely hate it when she does, as I can't help but actually picture the scene in my head and it's disgusting to me.
I'm Australian and have long said that something really delicious "tastes like it was made with the tears of angels".
I'm Canadian from southern Ontario, and we referred to Masturbation, as "I've been dating Miss Michigan" because the palm of your right hand looks like lower peninsula of the State of Michigan.
This has mostly fallen out of usage (I suppose because fewer people do outdoor rural jobs), but dad (Kent, UK) used to use "sparrow fart" as slang for unreasonably early in the morning (if the question was directly asking for a time "half past sparrow fart" might be the response).
That one made it to Australia too.
@@utha2665 - yep! Australian here. My family often said something like "I've got to be up at sparrow's fart tomorrow".
@@Luubelaar @utha2665 I have a hunch that "He went arse over tit" - fell over spectacularly / tumbled and "That went tits up" - went wrong (fell flat on its back) are also shared between British English (South East mainly I think) and Australia? Both are falling out of usage here I think unfortunately...
@@Tim_Smallthat's sad cause I still hear arse over tits from time to time
10:01 Incorrect a cheese toastie is with the bread on top; cheese on toast is just bread with cheese on top
My mom had a book filled with Swedish idioms and their literal English translations for amusement so we have quite a few, especially if you read many in a row (can't find it now though so it might be out of print.) Here are a few classics:
"Now they've taken a crap in the blue cabinet". Someone has done a mistake or embarrassed themselves to a degree where they can't hide it or take it back.
"To get stuck with the beard in the mailbox". You're in trouble, usually self-inflicted.
"There's a dog buried here" Something is amiss.
"To throw a goat's eye at something". Simply means you will have a closer look at it (the goat eye comes from sounding similar to an old Swedish word that meant "to watch/to guard")
Finally if someone is a bit stupid you can say that they're "not the sharpest knife in the drawer" or that "the elevator doesn't go to the top". 😅
To the stupidity ones, you can also add many, many versions with similar constructions like "he doesn't have all horses at home", "does't have all the cups in the cabinet". And there is also "the light is on, but there is no one at home". Etc. :)
One weird thing about Icelandic is that the word "Rassgat" ="Asshole" is used as a terms of endearment mostly meaning "Cute" and it's mostly used for babies and puppies and kittens - A Grandmother might say about her cute grandchildren "Ó þau eru svo mikil rassgöt" which directly translated would be "Oh they are such assholes" but what it really means in Icelandic is more like "Oh aren't they cute".
This of course means you never call someone in Iceland " Rassgat" or an "Asshole" and mean it negatively cause it sounds as if you are saying isn't he or she, cute.
Can a rassgat be rassgat?
@@IceMetalPunk Yes it's exactly like the English word, it can simply be a description of the body part but when used metaphorically it's not negative like in English.
In Swedish, if something is obvious, you would say "I think there may be owls in the wood".
Oh that's interesting! I know a Danish owl-related idiom goes "there are no owls in the bog" meaning there's nothing suspicious going on, or everything is normal. Conversely when there *are* owls in the bog, something strange is afoot.
Americans say "does a bear 💩 in the woods?" when somebody asks an obvious (yes answer) question. Or, "Is the Pope Catholic?"
Att ana ugglor i mossen betyder verkligen inte att något är uppenbart! Vem har lärt dig det?
You've completely come up with something of your own here. The expression is "I sense owls in the bog", and it means, on the contrary, that something is shady, suspicious, not quite as it should be.
Owls in the forest are, as you say, completely normal, but we don't need an expression to say that everything is normal or obvious really?🤔
@@olsa76 idk, _we_ do.... 🤷😁
"Don't look for tits on lizards" makes a lot of sense to me. Because only mammals have tits.
We have a saying "as useless as tits on a bull", slightly different meaning but in the same theme.
I've also heard "useless as tits on a turtle".
From the Midwest, US and "fallen off the wagon" is something I hear all the time.
Slightly different meaning but similar sound "jumping on the bandwagon" is doing something just because it's popular
Just realized I've been watching evan for 7 years. Time flies when you're having fun, I guess.
"Red hat, no drawers." A lady of dubious reputation. Drawers referring to her undergarments!
Is anyone else familiar with "by the bird with the long eyelashes" to mean you're lost? The cry of the fookawi bird, which has such long eyelashes that it flies around calling "where the fookawi, where the fookawi"?
Edit, another likely even more obscure "come back on an eerie-wig" to mean you aren't sure how or when you'll manage to get home but it will work itself out somehow.
No, but I like it 😆
I thought that was the Fookawi Tribe - 3ft tall pygmies in the 4ft tall grass, leaping up and down shouting "we're the fookawi, we're the fookawi" 🤣
"Tirar la casa por la ventana", which translates to _to throw the house through the window_ in Spain means to go further and beyond with something. For instance, going on vacation and going to expensive restaurants all the time (when you don't use to), organizing an extravagant party or giving a very generous gift.
Not sure if other Spanish speaking countries use it, though.
Also, as a joke, we would directly say the English translation (but with Spanish pronunciation, of course!): _de jaus zru de güindou_
When you're totally lost in Norway, you're "ute på bærtur" picking berries. When lost in Denmark, however, you're on "Lars Tyndskid's Marker", gone to the Fields of Lars Diarrhea.
Evan ! Your videos have such excellent sound quality - wonderful consistency always. What microphone does you use? Especially the small mic you wear.
Thanks much !
One of my favourite ones is a (possibly rural) French expression for heavy rain: il pleut comme vache qui pisse, i.e. it’s raining like a pissing cow.
Speaking as an owner of cows, that's very heavy rain!
I'm a Gen X American and "falling off the wagon" is, or was, a well-understood idiom. Maybe it's too out-of-use in today's world? Evan, tell me if you've ever heard "numpty" in the UK! I like it, and wish we had that insult here in the US 😂
numpty and nonce were two words I thought meant the same thing weirdly enough
Allegedly: "N.O.N.C.E. comes from HMP Wakefield at the turn of the century and was marked on the cell card of any prisoner who may have been in danger of violence from other prisoners - it means ‘Not On Normal Courtyard Exercise’. So that staff would not open their doors when other prisoners were out." e.g. paedophile or informer etc.
I definitely used to think nonce was a generic insult too 😂
“All hat and no cattle” sounds like our “all tip and no iceberg”.
My favourite that is local just to Sydney, Australia is “crook as Rookwood”. Crook is Aussie slang for ill/ailing and Rookwood is a necropolis in Sydney, the largest in the southern hemisphere. So if you’re feeling really ill and like you’re “on death’s doorstep” then you are “crook as Rookwood”.
I'll leave some Spanish ones:
"Me cago en la leche" means "I shit in the milk". It is used to express discontent, or being anoyed by something.
"No tengo el horno para bollos" means "I don't have the oven ready for paistries". It is used to say that you don't want anyone to bother you.
And an aditional one in Basque:
"Zozoak beleari ipurbeltz" means "The blackbird says to the raven that it has a black ass". It has the same meaning as "pot calling the kettle back"
This isn't even slang, but the Finnish term for a dragon is lohikäärme. When it's literally translated,it means salmon snake😅
I like the German “Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof“ (I only understand train station). It’s the equivalent for “It’s all Greek to me”.
In Irish, instead of saying "that is just the tip of the iceberg" , we say: "that is but a strawberry in the mouth of a bull (níl ansin ach sú talún i mbéal an bulláin)" 🍓
It's not a common expression, but the Danish song Hvalen Hvalborg has several expressions in the chorus for "Everything has an End, but BLANK has two." The word changes in each: Earthworm, Roundworm, and finally "Everything has an End, a Whale only has one. Oh but Hvalborg ... What an end!"
Damn I caught this vid fast lmao
Afrikaans has so many weird ones 😂
“Moenie die hoender ruk nie” - don’t shake the chicken. This means don’t overdo it.
“Dis n feit soos n koei” - it’s a fact like a cow. Meaning you can’t disagree with it.
“N aap in die mou he” - havinga monkey up your sleeve. Meaning you have a trick up your sleeve.
“Lepel in die dak steek”- sticking a spoon in the roof. Meaning someone is about to die or is dead
And so many more 😂
And we also have in South Africa generally “now, now now and just now” all meaning different things, none of which is actually now 😂
In Finnish, if people say that they "fell of the wagon" (putosin kärryiltä), it means that they weren't able to follow an explanation to the end. Also if you watch a movie and don't really concentrate and then at some point realize that you don't understand the plot anymore, then you fell of the wagon. It means that sort of thing. That saying has nothing to do with alcohol here.
One of my favorite Finnish sayings is "to go ass first up a tree" (mennä perse eellä puuhun). It means doing something in a completely wrong way.
Aussie here: Yes, we know about falling off the wagon. We also say "pushing shit up hill" to mean it's a task with no hope of success. And "they're pushing up daisies" to mean that person is dead. And "up at sparrow's fart" to mean being up at dawn.
A few Bolivian Spanish ones (some are used in other Spanish-speaking countries, some have a completely different meaning:
- "Faltar diez centavos para el peso" - To be missing ten cents for a full Peso, meaning to fall short of achieving something, but only just
- For far away places: "Donde el diablo perdió el poncho" (someone already mentioned it), "donde la Coca-cola llega sin gas" (where the Coke arrives flat, uncarbonated), "donde el viento llega cansado" (where the wind arrives tired), "allá en Chumbivillcas" (over there in Chumbivillcas - a small, lost town in Peru)
- "Estaba verga" (I/he/she was dick, meaning I/he/she was very drunk)
- "Sufrir como madre soltera" (to suffer like a single mom, to suffer too much, disproportionately)
- "No es como soplar y hacer botellas" (It's not like blowing and making bottles, meaning, it's a complicated task, don't overestimate your capabilites)
These are in pure Spanish, there's a whole lot which use Ayamara, Quechua or Guarai words, depending on the region
"Am Arsch der Welt" is that exact thing, we also have it as in "at the ass of the world". Other variations exist: "Wo der Pfeffer wächst" - "where the pepper grows" (as a likely reference to south asia and indian the subcontinent); "in der Pampa" - "in the Pampas" (referring to the grasslands in South America) - so both regions far away from here. 6:29 oh and one more: "In der Walachei" - "in Walochia(?)" a grassland in Hungary or Romania (sorry I'm not sure where actually)
„Geh doch dahin, wo der Pfeffer wächst.“ means „Fuck off.“. I‘ve never heard it in a different context.
British and or Australian "out in the wup wups" (middle of nowhere).
@@r4nd0mguy99we send people comb monkeys: “vai pentear macacos”. portugal Portuguese for “ buzz off”
And if you want to be fancy, you can say “anus mundi” (Latin).
Locally "Does the pope sh*t in the woods?" meaning "Of course it is." With sarcasm.
12:26 I hear it all the time 😂
14:21 I love your signature!
In Poland the middle of nowhere is called "a place behind the ass" (zadupie). But if it's especially remote and we want to emphasize it we can say "a place where the dogs bark with their asses" (although this one might be regional).
the catalan version of "yeah sure whatever, don't believe you" is "demà m'afaitaràs" which is literally translated as "you're going to shave me tomorrow". still haven't worked out why but it's a favourite of mine.
"Sky blue pink, with polka dot stripes" = an imaginary/unimportant colour/design.
My grandpa used to say sky blue pink a lot, I never knew what it meant!
I apparently spend enough time reading to know a lot of the English ones lol.
Some Finnish:
Juosten kustu = pissed while running - something that's been done haphazardly/badly
Rekkamiehen hymy = truck driver's smile - a**crack that peeks out from too low slung trousers
Kissanristiäiset = cat's christening/naming party - a party or an event one considers unimportant
Kiivetä perse edellä puuhun = to climb up a tree a** first - do something backwards or in a needlessly complicated manner
Kreivin aikaan = at the Count's time - when something happens at just the right moment, this is based on an actual Count that did a lot of societal and political changes in the 1600s
Jeesustella = to Jesus around - to be sanctimonious
I like these. They speak to something in me; perhaps I was Finnish in a previous life....
In Finnish instead of saying ”it fits like a glove”, we say ”it fits like a fist in the eye”
In German we would say "it fits like ass on bucket"
Ste-Éloingée-de-la-Carte (Saint Far From the Map) or St-Profond-des-Creux (Saint Peed and Far), plays on the fact that a large number of municipalities in Québec are named after saints.
My mother was German. She had a saying for anything that was very soothing. "It was like a little angel wee-wee'd on my soul."
another sausage one from the netherlands is "of je worst lust", or "[asking] if you like sausage", said when you asked someone a question but they didn't pay attention/ didn't hear it so they're asking you to repeat yourself
A childhood favorite exclamation of surprise (swedish, but actually norwegian); "Dra mig baklänges ända in i fågelholken."
It comes from a norwegian stop action movie made in 1975, called "Flåklypa Grand Prix". (The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix)
Very much worth a watch if you can find it. One of Norway's internationally most successful movies.
Translated into english, it becomes: "Pull me backwards all the way into the birdhouse."
The character saying it in the movie is an anthropomised magpie (bird), which makes it, perhaps, make a little more sense...?
In Costa Rica:
"where the devil lost his jacket" = the middle of nowhere
"Go wash your ass" = stop bothering me with your bullshit
"got on the flying pancake" = took the moral high ground
"to the pepper?" = for real?
Us, portuguese ppl, are rly creative when it comes to devil´s tango related expresions. For instance there´s "bater a punheta "
punheta is the name of a dish
so we say "to hit the punheta"
also we say "comer" (eat, to eat someone, x and y are eating themselves)
"fazer conchinha" (make shell in a cute way)
"enrolar-se" (same thing as eat but rolling)
we have an idiom in belgian french, to say that some place is far away in bumfuck nowhere.
We say it's in "hout'si'plu" which in walloon means "where it rains"
It's actually a small village at the german border, and it's very funny because first, as belgium is very small, you are never further than a 2 hours drive from hout'si'plu, and calling a specific place in belgium "where it rains" is absolutely hilarious to me, as if it didn't rain everywhere else too
Not from the US but the Shag dance (Colligate shag) which is a form was swing dancing is so much fun. I’ve taken a few shag classes and the class constantly joke about the name which makes it even better.
In Danish, there are 3 idioms for something far away.
First is: "Where the crows turn", as in turn around and fly back.
Second is: "Langbortistan", which translates to "Far-away-i-stan", similar to the "-stan" countries such as Kazakhstan in eastern europe and asia.
Third is: "Lars tyndskid's mark", which translates to "Lars Diarrhea-Shit's acre"
Just out of interest, what does the third one mean in terms of its use? How would it be used?
I ask because a "skid mark" in English has its own meaning and I'm wondering if there's some linguistic cross-over going on.
@@StormhavenGaming "Lars" is a common danish name and "tyndskid" literally translates to "thin shit" which means diarrhea. "Skid" means "shit" in danish, and I think you're right that linguistically it has a connection to the English word skid, but has since taken a more overt meaning. "Mark" in danish means planes, farmland or acre, it's the same word you find in Den*mark*, I can imagine it might have some connection to the English word for a mark, but the meaning is very different. If you were to translate English mark to danish today it would be "mærke" with skid mark being "skridmærke". Back to the idiom, the idea is that you're so far out in the boonies that you're literally standing on the well fertilized farmland of some farmer named Lars. I think an American expression that is the most similar would be "bumfuck nowhere", as in, you've driven us to bumfuck nowhere and my phone's got no signal.
American English (PNW) for #3 would be something like "in Louisville" or "in Timbuktu"
In Finnish there's an old one: Tiettömän taipaleen tuolla puolen - beyond the roadless realms.
“In West bubbafuck” - from the mid Atlantic area in the states, meaning “too far away”
In Finnish, if something is "pissed while running" (pissed as in urinated, not angry or drunk), it means it's made poorly, or that its design is shoddy.
I guess the literal translation would be more like "runningly pissed".
was playing mafia 2 for the first time, and your friend Joe says "playing with Rosie Palm and her five sisters" which is just amazing 😂
"Fell off the wagon" has always seemed pretty universal afaik. Along with recovering alcoholics being "on the wagon" in the first place.
I didn't know "I need to go freshen up" was an Irish thing. That's usually what my dad says (that and "I'm going to powder my nose"). His grandmother came from Ireland, and he grew up around a lot of Irish Americans, so it makes sense.
Australian here - the one i love is "Sparrow's fart" means really early in the morning
am Arsch der Welt
(at the ass of the world)
is a common german idiom
Brazilian Portuguese:
"na p*ta que o pariu" - "at the b*tch who birthed you" (Where is that place? Really far away/somewhere shady and far away. It's sometimes an insult of someone's mother depending on how you use it)
"negócio" - "business" (regional slang, means "thing" aswell)
"Agora a cobra vai fumar" - "Now the snake will smoke" (now I'll take action, I will act and things will really happen, even though it's very unexpected)
"entrar no bonde andando" - "to enter the moving tram" (To interrupt or join a conversation you weren't invited to, I think this slang is pretty old though)
"afogar o ganso" - "to drown the goose" (I would rather not describe what this is but it is NSFW)
The Swedish one was completely new to me (as a Swede). Never ever heard "to build a teddy bear (bygga en nalle(björn)?)" before, so this was interesting
Same for me, another Swede. Might be some other region or generation.
UK here: I heard the very close "to build a log cabin" from somewhere long forgotten and liked it so much I occasionally use it.
Same here and I have lived in many parts of the country. Very odd.
A cheese toastie has both slices of bread! Usually cooked on a panini press or a toastie machine. Cheese on toast (or roasted cheese if you're a weapon) only has one slice - very important distinction!