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Veja abaixo algumas delas, bem como seu significado e origem
Os idiomas refletem a história e as características de nações: seus interesses, prioridades, desafetos, bem como seu desenvolvimento ao logo do tempo. Para o intérprete que faz tradução simultânea, não basta um conhecimento superficial dos idiomas, seu domínio das línguas estrangeiras que traduz deve ser absoluto, pois expressões como as da lista abaixo podem surgir a qualquer momento e surpreendê-lo. Veja abaixo algumas expressões inusitadas do inglês, seus significados e como surgiram.
“Bob’s your Uncle”
Meaning: To achieve something with great ease
Origin: In 1886 PM Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (Lord Salisbury) surprisingly made Arthur Balfour Chief Secretary of Ireland; Balfour was ‘Bob’s’ nephew…
“Fly by the seats of your pants”
Meaning: To do something without a clear plan, to improvise
Origin: Used in a 1938 headline to describe Douglas Corrigan’s 29 hour flight from Brooklyn to Dublin, which was meant to be to California. Corrigan had filed for a transatlantic flight two days earlier but it was rejected because his plane was not considered fit for the job. Upon landing in Dublin he claimed his compass had packed up…
“Mad as a hatter”
Meaning: To be completely insane
Origin: In the 18th and 19th century mercury was used in felting – and hat making; the madness of hat makers was the result of mercury poisoning
“Piss Poor”
Meaning: To be extremely poor
Origin: In ancient times, urine was used in tanneries to soak the animal hides. A way for very poor families to make a few pennies was to sell their urine
“Bite the bullet”
Meaning: To do something unpleasant
Origin: When wounded soldiers in WW1 being operated on without anaesthetic literally had to bite a bullet to deal with the pain
“Kick the bucket”
Meaning: To die
Origin: Popular understanding is that in a lynching someone would kick the bucket away from under the person about to be hanged. However, a 1570 English dictionary records the word ‘bucket’ as a synonym for ‘beam’ – animals for slaughter would be hung upside down from such a beam and would kick the bucket (or beam) in their struggle during slaughter
“Go doolally”
Meaning: To go mad
Origin: After the Indian garrison town of Deolali where British soldiers waited, sometimes for months, to be taken back to Britain after their tour of duty. There was nothing to do and many may have been suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
“It’s raining cats and dogs”
Meaning: Raining very hard indeed
Origin: An instance of rhyming slang after frogs were whipped into the air during a storm and came back down again with the rain (as testified to in historical accounts)
“Win hands down”
Meaning: To do something without a great effort
Origin: In horse racing, a jockey winning comfortably does not need to use a whip and can ride to the finishing lines with his ‘hands down’
“Carry your heart on your sleeve”
Meaning: To be very open and transparent
Origin: In Othello Act 1 Scene 1, 64 Iago says “But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve…” meaning he would be exposed
“It’s brass monkeys outside”
Meaning: Freezing cold and miserable weather
Origin: ‘Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey’. A ship’s cannon balls used to be stacked on a brass structure called a ‘monkey’; the brass would contract in arctic temperatures and the cannon balls would fall off
“Taking the Mickey”
Meaning: To make fun of someone
Origin: As so often in rhyming slang, the actual rhyming word, Mickey ‘Bliss’ is left out. Some sources claim he was a 1950s BBC radio personality, but Mr Bliss remains elusive
“Three sheets to the wind”
Meaning: Very drunk and walking correspondingly unsteadily
Origin: ‘Sheets’ refers to the ropes with which a sail is fastened, two per sail. If out of four sheets, one was not properly fastened, the ship would become difficult to control and would be ‘to the wind’, moving as erratically as a drunk
“Skeleton in the cupboard”
Meaning: Something embarrassing to hide
Origin: Until the 1830s it was illegal to dissect human bodies, so grave-robbers and murderers supplied medical schools and doctors with bodies. These had to be hidden in case of raids. William Thackeray, satirical writer of Vanity Fair, used this phrase for the first time in print in 1845.
“Have a butchers”
Meaning: To look at something
Origin: Cockney rhyming slang ‘butcher’s hook’, leaves out the word that rhymes, ‘hook’ rhymes with ‘look’
“Through the eye of a needle”
Meaning: To undergo a near impossible process
Origin: From Matthew 19:24; Mark 10:25; and Luke 18:25. Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of needle than for a rich person to get to heaven
“Separate the wheat from the chaff”
Meaning: To distinguish between quality and worthlessness
Origin: The phrase comes from Matthew 3:12 where John the Baptist describes the man to come after him: ‘His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’ In the Old Testament the image of winnowing is also used in Psalm 1:4: ‘…the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.’
“Eat Humble Pie”
Meaning: To submit to something below one’s dignity, to admit one is wrong
Origin: Umbles, from Middle English, comes from Old French nombles meaning loin. It refers to offal, a meal for the poor
“Skin of your teeth”
Meaning: Barely managing to do something
Origin: Job describes his state (Job 19: 20): ‘My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh, / And I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.’ The phrases suggests something so thin and elusive as to be insubstantial
“Point Blank”
Meaning: Very close up and right on target
Origin: From the French ‘point blanc’, referring to the white circle at the centre of the target for archery or shooting practice. The meaning of being right on target was therefore the original meaning before it came to signify close up, from where it is easier to hit the ‘point blanc’
“Storm in a teacup/tempest in a teapot”
Meaning: A lot of trouble or argument over nothing of importance
Origin: The ‘tempest’ in a teacup or teapot is an image used in Roman philosopher Cicero’s De Legibus in approximately 100 BC. ‘Billows in a spoon’
“Red herring”
Meaning: Something misleading
Origin: To train young hunting dogs to follow a scent, the carcass of a cat or fox or, at a pinch, a smoked and salted herring (of a reddish colour) would be dragged along the ground. There is also the suggestion that it would have been used to see if the dogs would be put off the scent they were meant to follow
“Happy as a sand boy”
Meaning: To be very happy indeed
Origin: In Bristol there were pubs where fine sand from sea caves was strewn on the ground to soak up spills. The lads who collected the sand were partially paid in drink and were consequently usually quite merry or happy
“Sweet Fanny Adams”
Meaning: Emphatically nothing at all
Origin: This can be seen as a euphemism with Fanny Adams standing for F. A.
Fanny Adams (8) was the victim in a 1867 murder case, cut into pieces and thrown into the River Wey. A broadside ballad about the murder referred to her as ‘sweet’; a term British Naval slang later adopted to refer to tinned stew, apparently not very popular with the sailors
“It was a dickens of a job”
Meaning: A very difficult job
Origin: Shakespeare used this weakened form ‘Dickens’ for ‘devil’ or ‘devilkin’ in The Merry Wives of Windsor ‘I cannot tell what the Dickens his name is’ Act 3 Scene 2
“Horses for courses”
Meaning: Different people suited to different things
Origin: Horses perform better on certain courses. A horse that does well on a damp course may not do so well on a dry course
“Kangaroo Court”
Meaning: A fast, unfair legal procedure
Origin: 19th century American courts, especially in the Gold Rush, would skip procedures to assure quick sentencing. Australian prospectors, of which there were a considerable number, likened this to kangaroos hopping or skipping
“Haven’t seen you in donkey’s years”
Meaning: In a long time
Origin: The longevity of donkeys and the length of their ears
“Butter up”
Meaning: To flatter someone with the aim of getting them to be of assistance
Origin: A figurative saying to illustrate that someone is smothered in pleasantries
“Up the duff/in the club”
Meaning: To be pregnant
Origin: In the club’ refers to The Pudding Club. Both, duff and pudding are euphemistic expressions for penis and crudely link intercourse and pregnancy