Foreign Language Idioms Meaningful to You
Please comment briefly on why each foreign language idiom you post is meaningful to you and include its website link. Numbering them consecutively with one idiom per post will also provide a specific reference for sidebar discussions as a courtesy to other contributors. Enjoy.....
1) "Avoir l'Esprit d'Escalier"
“Avoir l’esprit d’escalier - or sometimes “avoir l’esprit de l’escalier” is yet another weird French idiom. Literally, it means to have the wit of the staircase. So it means nothing really! In English, you sometimes call this “escalator wit”, or afterwit. It means to make a witty comeback, to answer someone in a witty (and fast) way. Something the French really admire, and are trained to do as part of our national sport: arguing and debating."
http://french.about.com/od/expressions/fl/Meaning-Of-The-French-Expression-Avoir-LEsprit-DEscalier.htm
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Comment: Several years ago another still active member of Red Hot Pawn taught me the French Idiom "Avoir l'Esprit d'Escalier" as a reference to "polite repartee and/or clever rejoinders you wish you had said during the party as you're on the way up the staircase about to call it an evening".
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Originally posted by Grampy Bobby2) Saru mo ki kara ochiru.
[b]Foreign Language Idioms Meaningful to You
Please comment briefly on why each foreign language idiom you post is meaningful to you and include its website link. Numbering them consecutively with one idiom per post will also provide a specific reference for sidebar discussions as a courtesy to other contributors. Enjoy.....
1) [i]"Avoir l'Esp ...[text shortened]... ou had said during the party as you're on the way up the staircase about to call it an evening".[/b]
Even a monkey falls from a tree. (No website link i'm afraid). This Japanese saying relates well to chess, where even a great player can blunder.
Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke3) Festina Lente:
2) Saru mo ki kara ochiru.
Even a monkey falls from a tree. (No website link i'm afraid). This Japanese saying relates well to chess, where even a great player can blunder.
“Desiderius Erasmus : Adagia II, 1, 1: Festina Lente: Speude bradeos, i.e. festina lente, "Make haste slowly." This charming proverb appears at first glance a riddle, because it is made up of words which contradict each other. It is therefore to be classed with those which express their meaning through enantiosin, that is, contrariety, as we explained in the beginning of the Adages….” http://people.virginia.edu/~jdk3t/FLtrans.htm (Learned this proverb from an Economics Professor at Northeastern University in Boston; and was reminded of it by a good friend on this site several years ago.)