Thread: Frases en inglés que no debes traducir literalmente

Originally Posted by amayo

Hi diegonel. Well it looks like vicente was right all along. I must have always just heard it used in a positive light growing up, and made that assumption myself.

I agree with you interpretation of "beating around the bush".

Amayo!! You mean you had doubts about me!!!

The thing about sayings is that they are just something that someone made up at some point in time and others heard it and repeated it and it evolved into a "saying". Then people hear it and not knowing exactly what it means, put their own spin on it.

I could start one now, for instance. Something like "Thump the pumpkin" and tell you it means to verify the quality of, or validity of, or worthiness of a thing or person, sort of along the lines of "kick the tires". EX: "Before you get involved with that guy you'd better thump the pumpkin."

I guarantee that after it got started you would find it being applied in ways I never envisioned and have different meanings to different people...and none would be wrong because it's just a saying and there are no rules on how you interpret sayings. Eventually it would evolve into the most often repeated meaning but to individuals it would still bring to mind what they understood it to mean when they first started hearing and using it...as in Amayo's case.

Diana, en Argentina, estar más cerca del arpa de la guitarra signifca estar cerca de morirse, no? Como “está por ponerse el traje de madera”

It is similar to the sayings "to have one foot in the grave"; "to be living on borrowed time"; "to be running out of time"; "ready to cash in his chips"; "about to kick the bucket", etc.

They all refer to somebody near death due to illness or injury or approaching death because of old age.