TOEM

“The idiotic joys of idioms” an article by Jag Bhalla. This is an attention-grabbing reading. For Malay idioms, they are either meant to impart some moral values, or conversely, when translated literally into English are rendered hilarious, near ridiculous, even weird or funny.

These are a few match-making exercises on idiomatic expressions. Let us begin with Hindi:

> To sound out your throat: to boast
> There is some black in the dhal: there is more than meets the eye
> Chicken cooked at home is equivalent to dhal: a prophet is seldom accepted in his own country
> Bore holes in the plate that feeds you: bite the hand that feeds you
> Milk will remain milk; water will remain water: justice will be served
> When the birds have taken away the harvest: useless to cry over spilled milk
> To cook one’s own meal/porridge: to each his own
> A monkey/donkey has neither taste for, nor knows the benefits of, ginger/ to play the sitar in front of a buffalo: casting pearls before swine
> To become enmeshed in a tangle of “ifs” and “buts”: to stall

Next, a few in Malayalam:
> When trees are available in the forest, and the elephant belongs to the village headman, you can pull all (the trees, I presume) you want: make hay while the sun shines/strike while the iron is hot
> Like a dog visiting the marketplace: like a fish out of water; be a square peg in a round hole; an unwanted presence
> A donkey does not know the smell of camphor – similar to the Hindi saying: casting pearls before swine
> To hold open an umbrella at midnight (doesn’t say if it’s raining!): doing something utterly useless.

A couple of French idioms, again, because their literal translation makes them appear meaningless or sound crazy, but fun! And yes, never mind if they become ungrammatical in the process:
> To have a spider in one’s head: to have a screw loose/to have bats in one’s belfry
> To see 36 candles: to see stars
> By horn and cry: a hue and cry
> To make white cabbage: to draw a blank
> To drown in a glass of water: to make a mountain out of a molehill
> With body lost: headlong
> A glass of wine a day keeps the doctor away: An apple a day keeps the doctor away, for the rest of us.

Then of course we have a host of expressions in our national language, sounding equally humorous when literally translated, and similarly finding their idiomatic sense preserved in some “distant English relations”.
> Diam diam ubi berisi, which literally translates to “silently, silently the tapioca fills out”: still waters run deep
> Berbadan dua, literally “double-bodied”: to be in the family way/pregnant
> Telan mati emak, diluah mati bapak. Literally, “if you swallow, your mother may die; spit out, and your father may die”: catch-22; to be in a spot
> Pencuci mulut literally, “mouthwash”: dessert
> Tak pandai menari, dikatakan lantai jungkang-jungkit, which refers to someone who can’t dance but blames the floor for being uneven: a bad workman blames his tools
> Hangat-hangat tahi ayam, which means “hot, hot chicken sh**”: new broom sweeps clean.

It is interesting and significant that unity and value are addressed when the intended sense contained in a particular saying finds expression across cultures.

Extracted from http://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2009/9/9/lifefocus/4667614&sec=lifefocus