Read I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms From Around the World Online
Authors: Jag Bhalla
I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms From Around the World (19 page)
Akiyama, Nobuo, and Carol Akiyama.
2001 Japanese and English Idioms
. Barron’s Educational Series, 1996.
Albanese, Nicholas, Giovanni Spani, Phillip Balma, and Ermanno Conti.
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McGraw Hill, 2005.
Arany-Makkai, Agnes.
2001 Russian and English Idioms
. Barron’s Educational Series, 1997.
Crystal, David.
As They Say in Zanzibar.
Oxford University Press, 2008.
Emmes, Yetta.
Drek! The Real Yiddish Your Bubbe Never Taught You.
Plume, 1998.
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A Dictionary of Yiddish Slang & Idioms.
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Dictionary of 1000 Chinese Idioms
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A Learners Dictionary of Arabic Colloquial Idioms, Arabic-English
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Streetwise Spanish Dictionary/Thesaurus, The User Friendly Guide to Spanish Slang and Idioms
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Pickup, Ian, and Rod Hares.
Streetwise French Dictionary/Thesaurus, The User Friendly Guide to French Slang and Idioms
. McGraw Hill, 2002.
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2001 German and English Idioms
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Uglier Than a Monkey’s Armpit
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The source of much flavor herein:
Bierce, Ambrose.
The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary.
University of Georgia Press, 2002.
Blount, Roy, Jr.
Alphabet Juice.
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Bryson, Bill.
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———.
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James, Clive.
As of This Writing
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Kenneally, Christine.
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Lakoff, George.
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I
AM IMMEASURABLY INDEBTED
to multitudes of contributors, without whom this book would not have been possible; including those who were unwittingly involved in creating the source (and sauce) references. Not to mention the untold millions whose distilled wit, wisdom, and linguistic innovation are reproduced herein. Also to those instrumental in the mechanics of this publication, including especially my editor, Barbara Noe, who in addition to being wonderfully professional, also had faith in the idea enough to get it to the right deciders. Her reward for this favoUr
*
was to be sentenced to make it happen; a process that included shepherding the highly disorganized material of an easily irritable author. My gratitude also goes to Melissa Farris, the artful book designer, and Julia Suits, the talented illustrator and
New Yorker
cartoonist, whose work enlivens, whimsifies, and adds juice to what could otherwise have been a dry text.
Additional thanks to assorted others who have contributed variously, including encouragement, ideas, jokes, time, detailed comments, flippant feedback, retorts, ridicule, and other forms of support: Michelle Yenchochic (of Diversified Reporting), Ama Wertz, Marco Robert, Bahar Salimova, Eric Roston, Jeremy Pietron, Bill Wright, Aparna Jain, Monty & Melissa & Asher Oppenheim, Tanya Yudelman Block, Nora Malikin, Eugenia Sidereas, and Louise & Nigel & Ida & Saga Biggar.
My thanks also to various running mates at Potomac Runners (led by the irrepressible Philip Davis), Perk-Uppers (including Devry Boughner, Justine and Rob Donahue, Tracy Wilson, Jennifer Eliot, and Denise and Bryan King), and Fleet Feet DC (led by the indefatigable Phil Fenty), who all facilitated a sociable sweat-soaked semblance of sanity.
Finally, to innumerable Knaan Knights and companions, who have broken the bread of my ancestors with me.
J
AG
B
HALLA
is an amateur idiomologist, amateur triviologist, amateur natural scientist, amateur entrepreneur, amateur film producer, and now amateur author.
J
ULIA
S
UITS
is a
New Yorker
cartoonist, painter, and geeky pursuer of the odd and overlooked.
*
Lexical-Lego can be taken to extremes. For example, David Crystal in
Words, Words, Words
reports on a word that means “fear of long words” (hyphenated for ease of decryption):
hippopoto-monstro-sesquippedalio-phobia
–that’s 36 letters!
*
In ancient Greece, every nine days 6,000 men were needed for a people’s assembly. Those not attending were rounded up by authorities using a red-painted rope that left them “marked men.”
2
*
Not the language of the Ludians, though there is a language by that name, spoken by 3,000 people in the Baltic-Finnic family. This is a term derived from the Latin
ludus,
“play,” and used by David Crystal to describe universal word play.
*
Not the closely related term for governmental laxity (from French “allow to do”). Here I mean equanimity of laxity–to devote equally less effort to each relevant area.
*
Intentionally used as a verb; see “Shakespeared Brain” point later (plus I’m tired of being a stickler).
*
Not a misspelling of evil intent, but meant in the sense of Wikipedia: efforts of collective commoners.
**
My favorite definition of curiosity comes from one of my least favorite philosophers–Thomas Hobbes; he whose nasty and brutish influence has not been sufficiently short. He called it a “lust of the mind.”
*
The peacock’s tail is featured in the very unsexy Polish idiom “to show the peacock,” which means to vomit.
*
This is the original meaning of the word “astonishment.”
*
Those romantic Germans have a word that translates as “dragon fodder,” for the gift a husband gives to apologize to his wife.
*
Yiddish used to be known as “the mother’s tongue” and was used mainly by women; men used Hebrew.
1
*
Psychologists have measured this phenomenon.
**
Gemful–a word Blount would no doubt think should be a word since
bejeweled
is too unwieldy.
*
Amorese
or
couplese,
though, often is just oh-plea-ese?
*
To have a domineering mother
–to live under a hegemomy.
*
Kanzi’s story is serendipitous. Researchers were trying to teach his mother; he was just along for the ride. She wasn’t a good student, but Kanzi inadvertently got the hang of it.
*
A half-syllable away from the slightly more apt Nym (since that’s a morpheme indicating naming).
**
Sadly Alex, to put it Python-esquely, is an ex-parrot. His last words to Irene were reported to have been “I love you.”
2
*
Woo-woo theory now seems less apt; we need to emphasize the creative and humorous aspects of relationships. Perhaps “new ha woo” might be better?
**
Disaster originally meant “under a bad star.”
*
The Irish/Welsh have a proverb that insightfully warns “never bolt a barn door with a boiled carrot.”
*
Tangent—a habitually disobedient slave in ancient Rome was called a wearer out of whips.
*
In Persian myth, pearls were thought to be the frozen tears of the gods.
*
In a similar vein, the Dutch have a curse: “May you get cancer behind your heart, so a doctor can’t reach it.”
*
Revealed in his book
Posterior Analytics
(with the benefit of hindsight, that’s funnier than intended).
*
In contrast to a long history of postmortem entrail reading as practiced on sacrificial animals.
*
Shakespeare used the wonderfully apt word blindcheeks.
*
Perfume originally meant “through smoke.”
*
Ancient Romans had armpit pluckers, often slaves, at public baths.
*
You can take the Implicit Association Tests yourself at www.implicit.harvard.edu.
*
Some aspect of this distinction might survive in English’s number grammar–first, second, third, then everything from there ends in “th” (fourth, fifth, etc.).
*
Heavy dictionaries are called
donkey killers
in Mexican Spanish.
*
Sarcasm is from the ancient Greek for
flesh-cutting.
*
Petrified shares the same root as
Peter. Petra
in ancient Greek meant “rock.”
*
Most of the world’s 6,000 or so languages are spoken by fewer than a couple of thousand people.
*
Contra-eponymy?
*
Completely tangential:
Poppycock
derives from the Dutch for doll’s poop.
*
Darwin also wrote lesser known books on barnacles, orchids, shipboard microscopy, the movements of climbing plants, insectivorous plants, vegetable mold, and worms, none of which I’ve read.
*
They had their own facial muscles electrically stimulated by surgeons in the process of creating the catalogue over a period of seven years.
*
The French have a word for a “grief muscle” that Darwin mentions in another essay on expressions.
*
Astonishment
originally meant “to be struck by lightning.”
*
In ancient Rome, a returning victorious general was given a triumph, a lavish parade in his honor—at which a slave was employed to constantly remind the general that he was still only human.