This piece originally appeared on the National Post's web site:
I’m a language addict. I’m not pulling your leg. I seek the thrill of a novel turn of phrase, a surprising sentence or a marvelously unexpected meaning. The resulting high can be one of life’s most necessary pleasures.
But it’s not just me. We are all addicted, all dependent, to some degree. It’s our most ubiquitous mind altering drug; sometimes more potent than the neurochemical kind. A single hit can deliver a semantic ambush that changes your mind forever.
Neophilia is partly why other languages are so alluring. I’d love to be able to see the world anew, refracted through the unique lenses of other languages. Proust got the essence of it “the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
Sadly I remain enviously monolingual. I continue to crave from afar, lacking the needed discipline or aptitude. Instead I rationalize. Wondering whether the years required to master even one language would satisfy my linguistic lust? Unlikely.
However my linguistic longings and shortcomings have not been in vain. For the slake of my fellow semantic thrill seekers, I’ve started dealing in fresh foreign phrases. I’ve collected some of the most novel (new to the English speaking ear) and intriguing expressions from ten languages. They’re published in an easy to score book. It can save you the decades of effort otherwise needed to actually learn the ten languages themselves.
Some are charming variations of familiar phrases, but others are more exotic, hilarious, opaque or bizarre. For example here are 10 of my favorites:
To peel the teeth = to smile – Spanish
To have itchy teeth = to gossip – Russian
Belch smoke from seven offices of the head = furious - Chinese
To bang your butt on the ground = to die laughing - French
To live like a maggot in bacon = to live in luxury - German
To strike the 400 blows = to sow wild oats - French
Onions should grow in your navel = a mild insult - Yiddish
To reheat cabbage = rekindle an old flame - Italian
To make tea with your navel = that’s laughable - Japanese
I’m not hanging noodles on your ears = I’m not pulling your leg – Russian
Lest ye be prepared to cast the first semantic stone, don’t forget English is also littered with curious non literal phrases. Is “I’m not hanging noodles on your ears” any stranger than “I’m not pulling your leg”? Such idioms are defined as phrases whose meaning isn’t clear from the words in them. Each is a turn of phrase that requires a sudden turn of meaning; surely a bizarrely illogical way to communicate.
Idioms resist reason not only logically but frequently etymologically. Digging into their origins is often fruitless. To quote Christine Ammer, the editor of The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms “the ultimate origin of many idioms is unknown”. Even William Safire of the New York Times and America’s leading self confessed phrase-dick, bows to the difficulties. As he says in his collection of “On Language” columns published in book form as The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time, “The source of the expression ‘to pull the wool over your eyes’ is a mystery.” Though he finds a first usage (Jamestown Journal, 1839) and posits a theory, he concedes that “no etymologist has yet come up with the specific item made of wool.” Lexical archaeology is difficult enough in English, and more so in other less familiar languages.
Yet despite logical and etymological handicaps, idioms are a mainstay of language. Linguists, such as Steven Pinker, believe we store as many idioms (and other formulaic phrases) in our long term memory as we do words. Idioms are no longer thought of as peripheral oddities. They are central to how we communicate.
Looking through the idioms of other languages can provide wonderful insights into the workings of other cultures. Also into the workings of another equally strange and exotic destination that’s a little closer to home; the under explored world between our ears. The curiosities of language can be thrilling. They can also change your mind. Help us to rethink the way we think about the way we think. I’m not kidding. Or as Russians would say “I’m not hanging noodles on your ears.”
Jag Bhalla is an amateur idiomologist and author of “I’m Not Hanging Noodles on your Ears” a surreptitious science gift book featuring a collection of 1,200 idioms from 10 languages, from National Geographic Books, illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist Julia Suits.
I’m a language addict. I’m not pulling your leg. I seek the thrill of a novel turn of phrase, a surprising sentence or a marvelously unexpected meaning. The resulting high can be one of life’s most necessary pleasures.
But it’s not just me. We are all addicted, all dependent, to some degree. It’s our most ubiquitous mind altering drug; sometimes more potent than the neurochemical kind. A single hit can deliver a semantic ambush that changes your mind forever.
Neophilia is partly why other languages are so alluring. I’d love to be able to see the world anew, refracted through the unique lenses of other languages. Proust got the essence of it “the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
Sadly I remain enviously monolingual. I continue to crave from afar, lacking the needed discipline or aptitude. Instead I rationalize. Wondering whether the years required to master even one language would satisfy my linguistic lust? Unlikely.
However my linguistic longings and shortcomings have not been in vain. For the slake of my fellow semantic thrill seekers, I’ve started dealing in fresh foreign phrases. I’ve collected some of the most novel (new to the English speaking ear) and intriguing expressions from ten languages. They’re published in an easy to score book. It can save you the decades of effort otherwise needed to actually learn the ten languages themselves.
Some are charming variations of familiar phrases, but others are more exotic, hilarious, opaque or bizarre. For example here are 10 of my favorites:
To peel the teeth = to smile – Spanish
To have itchy teeth = to gossip – Russian
Belch smoke from seven offices of the head = furious - Chinese
To bang your butt on the ground = to die laughing - French
To live like a maggot in bacon = to live in luxury - German
To strike the 400 blows = to sow wild oats - French
Onions should grow in your navel = a mild insult - Yiddish
To reheat cabbage = rekindle an old flame - Italian
To make tea with your navel = that’s laughable - Japanese
I’m not hanging noodles on your ears = I’m not pulling your leg – Russian
Lest ye be prepared to cast the first semantic stone, don’t forget English is also littered with curious non literal phrases. Is “I’m not hanging noodles on your ears” any stranger than “I’m not pulling your leg”? Such idioms are defined as phrases whose meaning isn’t clear from the words in them. Each is a turn of phrase that requires a sudden turn of meaning; surely a bizarrely illogical way to communicate.
Idioms resist reason not only logically but frequently etymologically. Digging into their origins is often fruitless. To quote Christine Ammer, the editor of The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms “the ultimate origin of many idioms is unknown”. Even William Safire of the New York Times and America’s leading self confessed phrase-dick, bows to the difficulties. As he says in his collection of “On Language” columns published in book form as The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time, “The source of the expression ‘to pull the wool over your eyes’ is a mystery.” Though he finds a first usage (Jamestown Journal, 1839) and posits a theory, he concedes that “no etymologist has yet come up with the specific item made of wool.” Lexical archaeology is difficult enough in English, and more so in other less familiar languages.
Yet despite logical and etymological handicaps, idioms are a mainstay of language. Linguists, such as Steven Pinker, believe we store as many idioms (and other formulaic phrases) in our long term memory as we do words. Idioms are no longer thought of as peripheral oddities. They are central to how we communicate.
Looking through the idioms of other languages can provide wonderful insights into the workings of other cultures. Also into the workings of another equally strange and exotic destination that’s a little closer to home; the under explored world between our ears. The curiosities of language can be thrilling. They can also change your mind. Help us to rethink the way we think about the way we think. I’m not kidding. Or as Russians would say “I’m not hanging noodles on your ears.”
Jag Bhalla is an amateur idiomologist and author of “I’m Not Hanging Noodles on your Ears” a surreptitious science gift book featuring a collection of 1,200 idioms from 10 languages, from National Geographic Books, illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist Julia Suits.