What are some (non-English) idioms, and what do they mean (both literally and in context)? Odd ones, your favorite ones - any and all are welcome. :)
For example, in English I might call someone a “good egg,” meaning they’re a nice person. Or, if it’s raining heavily, I might say “it’s raining cats and dogs.”
Icelandic is full of fun idioms:
“He’s totally outside driving” = he’s very incorrect about something, possibly crazy
“It’s hard to grab his horns” = He’s very headstrong and stubborn
“A wave rarely comes alone” = If something bad happens, usually a lot of bad things happen at once
“He hasn’t peed into the salty sea” = he’s young an inexperienced
“He has unclean flour in the corner of the bag” = he’s untrustworthy
“I totally come from the mountains” = I’m out of the loop, unaware of recent developments
Danish has this also, just phrased like “He’s not got clean flour in the bag”
Maybe it’s from common heritage
Yeah probably, a surprising amount of Icelandic idioms have Danish/Norwegian counterparts
Swedish has it as well, so I think we can safely scratch it down to common heritage.
They do not fuck around when it comes to unclean flour
An equivalent idiom in English for this one might be “When it rains, it pours”
‘Les merdes volent en escadrille’ = ‘shits fly in a squadron’ (famous expression coined by former President Jacques Chirac)
There’s also the very nerdy Shakespeare version of the same sentiment: “when troubles come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”
Similar to ‘Have you been living under a rock?’.