Re: Common World Idioms

On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 05:48:58PM -0800, Steve Cooney wrote:
> Thanks, Gary. Actully, since I apparently was'nt clear
> enough - language=bah!)  What I wanted was somewhere
> inbetween - namely that very short list where literal
> terms and underlying meanings coincide - this
> coincidence is by both knowledge and deduction - in
> otherwords if it seems like maybe its common enough,
> throw it out here so we can look at it.
>
Well, let me throw out a few identical pairs I know of in
Spanish:

"Above all"/"Sobre todo" - the most important thing

"go"/"ir" - in the sense of "belong":
        "Where does this chair go?"/"¿Dónde va esta silla?"

"After all"/"Después de todo" - in the sense similar to "besides":
        "After all, it's my money."/"Después de todo, es mi dinero."

"Turn one's back"/"Volver la espalda"

"A bed of roses"/"Un lecho de rosas"
        "Life isn't always a bed of roses"
        "La vida no es siempre un lecho de rosas."


"To tighten one's belt"/"Apretar el cinturón"   - to make do with less

"cold blood"/"sangre fría" - a dispassionate murder

"Grab the bull by the horns"/"Agorrar el toro por los cuernos"

There are also some that are really close, with interesting
discrepancies; for instance "to count on" as in "You can count on me"
is "contar con", literally "to count with".  My favorite of these,
though, is "no tener nada que ver con" - "not to have anything to do with",
literally "not to have anything to see with".  Also, "to kill two birds
with one stone" is "matar dos pájaros en un tiro": "to kill two birds
in one throw".

-Mark