It’s Okay, I Don’t Bite
Yesterasay’s Total Calories: 1215
It’s 4 am and I can’t sleep. Big fun. Odd considering I could barely keep my eyes open at 9pm last night. I got maybe a total of three hours of sleep and now I’ve been awake since midnight. I’m exhausted but this sleep thing just isn’t happening. I could take a sleeping pill but I need 8 hours after taking one for sleep. Does anyone else find this ironic? By the time it’s definite that reading or whatever else won’t do the trick it’s too late to take a sleeping pill. Grr.
On a side note, I don’t like taking sleeping pills and rarely use them. When I do I need I need 8 hours of sleep for it to work and not make me groggy the next day. Only certain types work for me also. Japanese sleeping pills (I’ve tried several sorts) make me wake up feeling like I have a hangover. That’s kind of bad.
Watch me become one of the train sleepers. I swear it’s some sort of talent Japanese people have for sleeping on trains. They can fall asleep and wake up at their stop without any sort of alarm. How does that work? Almost every day I end up brushing someone’s head off my shoulder as they loll about in their sleep, mouth open, softly snoring. Some even do this while standing and holding onto the dangling straps designed to keep one from falling during sudden lurches. I’m not talking about one or two people either, I mean half the train is asleep during rush hour. Is this a Japanese phenomena or am I just a girl from the burbs shocked at city life?
I need to find some productive outlet for my budding insomniac tendencies. I know! I’ll blog about it! Heh.
I have the weirdest cravings for peanut butter now. Not straight from the jar but in mixed forms. Odd considering I never really liked it up until recently. Peanut Butter Stir-Fry is the thing I crave the most. Peanut butter granola bars would be close second but I can’t get those here. The other day I made veggie burgers and experimented by putting peanut butter into one the patties. Eh, not the greatest but I’ve had worse. There must be a way to make peanut butter salad dressing. Peanut butter sauces are only saucy if they’re hot or have loads of oil in them I find. Maybe if I mix it with broth and a touch of vinegar for zing I’ll get a more dressing-like concoction? This is my experiment for the week.
I’m also craving crepes or French toast right now. Is it wrong that I intend to make peanut butter versions of these delectable treats? I’ve had raw apple with peanut butter, I wonder how cooked apples with peanut butter melted over them on top of French toast or crepes would be?
If anyone still reading? I know, I’m nasty! It’s okay, I don’t bite. Today a co-worker pulled me aside and mentioned that a new customer was there to speak with me but was very nervous about using English.
“She is very nervous to speak English and a little shy maybe.”
“It’s okay, I don’t bite.”
For whatever reason I still use idiomatic expressions even though they are completely lost on the person I am speaking to or just plain sound silly to them. The person I said that bite comment to is fluent in English (not many people here are, the language is too different I think) so she thought it was hilarious even though she’d never heard that before. I used to make jokes back home all the time, but since jokes don’t translate well when English is a second language, I don’t do jokes as much anymore. Yet for some reason I make everyone laugh so much more here just by saying common expressions that don’t readily translate. I guess if I weren’t a native English speaker that that saying would make me laugh too. How is that English has so many sayings and idioms? Did you know that the English language has more idioms than any other language? There are thousands of them.
Tags: can't sleep, I don't bite, idoims, insomnia, It's okay, Japanese people sleep on trains, Japanese sleeping pills, obsession, peanut butter, phenomena
March 18, 2008 at 11:39 am
Idioms
My approach to the analysis of idioms is essentially based on determining the etymology of the idiom. It is no better or more accurate than the determination of the etymology of any other word or phrase. However, the phonetic aspect is often easier because most idioms have more syllables than most single words.
To use an idiom competently/properly does not require any knowledge of its etymology. However, this knowledge may help an L2 student remember an idiom and how/when to use it.
When I was a young kid, all of my friends and I knew the meaning of “escape by the skin of my teeth” and not a single one of us knew it was the translation of B’3or SHinai, a Hebrew pun on the word B’QoSHi (which means barely, hardly, with difficulty) in the biblical book of Job 19:20.
The majority of idioms are transliterated (not translated) from a foreign language directly into words that look/sound/feel like the target language. For English idioms, there are not a lot of foreign languages involved: Germanic languages, Latin, Aramaic (during the 600 years it was a lingua franca), French (1066), Hebrew & Greek (biblical translation), Arabic (7 Crusades, Spanish Armada 1588 => Black Irish), Yiddish (in England prior to the Expulsion in 1290; 1840s from Germany, early 1900s from Eastern Europe), etc.
A minority of idioms are the translation of foreign idioms. These are more difficult to analyze because one needs to know not only the language of the source but also the language into which the original transliteration (sic) was made, which may or may not be the same. Additional intermediate translations (sic) should not affect the result if they were faithful.
A cute English translation idiom is “count sheep !” to go to sleep. This is probably the translation of a Hebrew pun S’PoR TSo@N on the Latin phrase sopor (as in soporific) sond (as in soundly / deeply). This English idiom has been retranslated back into Israeli Hebrew as LiSPoR KeVeS = to count sheep.
In a few cases, the “original” was a euphemism and not “plain text”. I suspect this is the case with “kick the bucket”. It seems to be the direct transliteration of a Semitic euphemism for dying: to make love in Paradise. Using 3 for aiyin with its ancient G/K-sound: 3aGaV = make physical love + B’3aiDeN = in Eden. 3G => Kick, vB3Dn => BucKeT.
In other words, this type of idiom formation represents the target languag-ification of a foreign word or phrase. It can be most easily illustrated with a foreign phrase that did *not* become an idiom: Latin e pluribus unum = out of many, one. This is a motto of the USA. If it had become an idiom, it might have become “a flower bush you name” but would retain its original Latin meaning. It would probably acquire a folk etymology, such as: we could give a flower bush many names, but we usually give it only one.
Transliteration idioms are most easily formed at a time when most target-language speakers do not read and write. They hear a foreign word/phrase, understand its meaning in context, and convert its sounds into target-language words they do know.
For a rare modern example, “face the music” is attested in the United States from the 1840s. This “music” is probably from Yiddish MoSKoNeh = inference, deduction, hence, consequences, from Hebrew MaSKaNah with the same meaning.
Etymology is not an exact science. The three etymologies that a non-linguist is most likely to “know” are all false. Muscle is not from Latin musculus = a small mouse. Sabotage is not from French sabot = an old shoe. And cabal is from Hebrew het-bet-lamed = to plot, scheme, not from Hebrew Kabbalah = esoteric knowledge, literally, received (tradition). Porcelain has nothing to do with a porcine vulva, and gossamer is from Latin Gossypium = cotton, not from goose + summer :-). But that is another story.
For more idiom etymologies, do a Google search for
Best regards,
Israel “izzy” Cohen
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps/
June 3, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Extrusile says : I absolutely agree with this !