A new life for Word of the Day

[muckefuck]

Above all, I want to thank everyone for their contributions to my "Word of the Day" feature. What started out as a side project to shore up my vocabulary took on new life with your contributions. I began to look at it less as a list of words to memorise and more as a starting point for very educational discussions.

As a result, I've been toying with the idea of revising it to make better use of the feedback. Instead of me combing dictionaries and websites for translations, how about I throw out a term and you all can suggest equivalents? We can talk about them and then group the results into a short list. (As a result, I'll have to drop Korean and China from the list of languages, since I don't think I have any regular reads who know them well enough.)

If y'all're game, then I'll kick off the new feature with a phrase that occurred to me today at lunch: "raised by wolves". In English, we use this as a humourous means of casting aspersions on someone's etiquette. Apparently, "You weren't raised by wolves!" is used by some parents to castigate their children's boorish behaviour. Another usage would be "What, were you raised by wolves?" as a familiar way of commenting on a friend's faux pas.

Ideas? Ideen? Ideeën? ¿Ideas? Idees? Idées? Syniadau? Smaointe?

Comments

[hkitsune.livejournal.com]

I'm from Texas, and grew up with blue collar trailer trash (literally, trailer and everything) and our phrase was always, "Do you think you were raised in a barn?"

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

In my family, "Were you brought up in a barn?" generally referred to untidiness, not lack of manners. We didn't use "raised by wolves".

[dedalusj.livejournal.com]

Drop Korean? Whoa, I may not have been writing but I was reading. What I liked was that the Korean words you choose were words that have sort of idiomatic features (offhand examples are 꿈을 꾸다 and 잠을 자다 or 걸어(서)가다) which are usually seen in logical, but unexpected combinations(from an English perspective.) The use of a sentence was helpful too.

And as for "raised by wolves" (lit. 늑대가 키우다), the closest I found, when I asked around, was 게걸스럽다. However, It is not exactly the same as it is a word rather than an expression and applies to eating. Ravanous would be the English translation, but it contains an uncouth element to it. I'll continue to try to find a phrase for it, but until then remember, 오랫동안 먹지 못하라도 게걸스럽게 먹지 마십시오.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

Educado pelos lobos, I guess, for Portuguese, but it just sounds wrong. I like your Dutch, even though that, too, sounds bizarre.

[anicca-anicca.livejournal.com]

I actually enjoyed your word of the day list the way it was. Benefitted from it, too, but...
allzeit bereit to contribute useless tidbits... ;)

"Dich hat der Esel im Galopp verloren" is what I've heard. The way I understand it is "Your were born of a donkey mother galopping past".
I'm sure there must be more, will ask my colleagues later.

("Du bist wohl in der U-Bahn groß geworden" for someone who forgets to close the door after them, but that's sth else.)

[anicca-anicca.livejournal.com]

Actually, it IS useless / not really to the point. The meaning of "Dich hat der Esel im Galopp verloren" is rather that it's not really clear who your parents are, where you're from, less that your behaviour is boorish.

[itchwoot.livejournal.com]

That's interesting... I have never heard either of those phrases!

[anicca-anicca.livejournal.com]

They're pretty common in Berlin. Maybe they're used only in this region.
I don't think they're used in the area I grew up in (Pfälzerwald), probably due to the lack of underground trains and the stricter sense of morality in Catholic villages that doesn't question someone's descent.
Another one I've only ever heard in Berlin, for a guy who sleeps around a lot / has fathered children all over the place: "Der darf auch kein Kind auf der Straße schlagen, es könnte seins sein."
*shrugs*
Bit weird, Berliners.

In terms of "having no manners", I think the following are in use all over Germany:
(I can't come up with anything wolf-related)
"keine Kinderstube haben"
or, slangier: "mit dem Düsenjet durch die Kinderstube geflogen sein"

[itchwoot.livejournal.com]

Genau! "Keine Kinderstube haben" ist gut. Das mit dem Düsenjet höre ich aber auch zum ersten Mal. ;)

[anicca-anicca.livejournal.com]

Nie gehört, wirklich? Das erstaunt mich, ich hätte Düsenjäger/Düsenjet/Kinderstube für absolut gängig gehalten. Meine Umgebung ist wohl noch sprüche-lastiger, als ich dachte.
Tatsächlich ergoogelt es nur unter 1000 Treffer, im Gegensatz zu z.B. "Axt im Walde"/182.000, was mir auch noch einfiel, aber das heißt ja eher rücksichtslos als schlecht erzogen.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I've heard "Deine Eltern wohnten wohl am Hang" for people who forget to close the door. Or "Du bist wohl im Neubau großgeworden".

There's also "Dein Vater war wohl Glaser", though I forgot the meaning and had to google it (someone who stands in your light).

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Odd! Nuphy's family would said, "Your father wasn't a glassblower" when someone stood in front of the TV. I haven't heard that elsewhere. More typical is, "You make a better door than a window." (We had the family-specific usage, coined by my brother: "Transparency is not one of your virtues.")

[fainic-thu-fein.livejournal.com]

I'd say you're most likely to hear something along the lines of "nach bhfuil béasa/múineadh ar bith ort?" in Irish.

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

Your WOTD posts are simply great and I wish I had contributed since earlier. I would continue with them, whenever a word comes up to you. But your suggestion about other ways of contribution are also nice, so here's the CAT/ESP entries for today.

ESP
Lo más idiomático o, quizás debería decir, lo que está de moda es decir "Eres basto". En mi familia se dice "Eres más basto que la paja de habas", pero incorporaciones más modernas son "Eres más basto que unas bragas de esparto" y "Eres más basto que un Petit-Suisse de morcilla" (te aclaro lo que te haga falta).

CAT
He preguntat a la meva amiga Imma, que és de poble i m'ha dit que d'on ella és diuen "Han crescut com les herbes del camp".

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

M'encata el modisme català. Es una manera de "left-handed compliment", gairebé com si estiguis lloant la seva llibertat d'esperit! "Han crescut lliure dels problemes del món humà i de les càrregues de la vida civilitzada!"

I think I will have to start saying "You're as coarse as wicker knickers!" in English.

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

LOL
That's a great one!

But I guess you don't have petit-suisses in the US, or you would be shocked to be called "you're ruder than blackpudding-flavored quark cheese"

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

We don't have petit-suisse or black pudding in the USA, so there's no way to make that trip off the tongue. No obstante lo diré cuando hable castellano.

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

But they have black pudding in the UK... I think it could be defined as "blood sausage". Not the most refined of foods. http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morcilla

There's a definition of Petit Suisse in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petit_suisse_(cheese) but you have to think that the only ones in Spain are sold by Danone (Dannon) and are like called Danoninos now

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, in the US, you'd have to say "blood sausage" or "Blutwurst" and hope people will know what you're talking about. (Most won't, because these just aren't a part of the national diet.) Cuando estaba en Asturias (trabajando en una excavación como estudiante-esclavo) puso mi hermano comer morcilla hasta hartarse en el refectorio porque sus compañeros no quisieron probársela en absoluto!

También no se vende el quark aquí--llàstima perquè m'agrada tant menjar-lo!

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

that's going right in my file, next to the Russian "cold as a witch's tit"

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Someone told you that was Russian? I've heard it for years and never suspected it of having an origin outside of English.

[teapot-farm.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see the WOTD posts continue too - I like the format, being a bit on the scattered side myself, and they are encouraging my completely pointless learning of Dutch.
This new phrase-based type of post would be great too, but I'm aware that I don't really know any non-English languages well enough to contribute.

[peredur-glyn.livejournal.com]

An appropriate Welsh translation would be:

Gest ti dy fagu gan fleiddiaid?

But it would be a calque: I can't think of a native Welsh equivalent at the moment. The above would get the point across, though.

It reminds me of the similar "were you raised in a cave?" (usually used when you leave a door open after entering a room), for which there is the Welsh gest ti d'eni mewn ogof?

[itchwoot.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed your WOTD so far, even though I don't know much about the other languages.

This one's tough... if you're talking about etiquette or (table side) manners in German, you'd most likely refer to "having read your Knigge" or "Benimmregeln" or something like that.

"Da hat wohl jemand seinen Knigge nicht gelesen!" sounds about right for commenting a friend's faux pas. But that implies that your friend didn't know it was a faux pas in the first place.

That would be only among adults, though. I don't think there's a set expression like "raised by wolves", at least I can't even think about anything close to that.
Parents castigating their children would most likely just say "Benimm dich!".

Apart from that, you can use "von Wölfen großgezogen" when someone was quite literally raised by wolves or just grew up without parents or contact to other humans in the wilderness.

And here's a complimentary song that fits the topic! ;-)