For no reason at all, please give me your favourite cow-related figures of speech!
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@ReneDamkot @sundogplanets also from nl: achteraf kijk je de koe in de kont (lit. after the fact, all there's left to see is the cow's ass, meaning something like no crying over spilled milk)
@DutchCheryl @ReneDamkot @sundogplanets Als de kalveren op het ijs dansen (equivalent to “when pigs fly”, just a different animal and different mode of locomotion).
Koeienletters (cow’s letters, very large text, with a sense of “so obvious that you can’t miss it”. Especially when someone did miss it and got an unfavourable result that reading the text in koeienletters could have prevented.)
Stom als een rund: dully stupid.
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@nest @sundogplanets Read this month’s Scientific American for more on cow tools!
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For no reason at all, please give me your favourite cow-related figures of speech! (Stuff like "No use crying over spilled milk" or "until the cows come home", puns extremely welcome)
@sundogplanets An elderly neighbour used to describe something very dark as "being blacker than the inside of a cow". She used it semi regularly.
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For no reason at all, please give me your favourite cow-related figures of speech! (Stuff like "No use crying over spilled milk" or "until the cows come home", puns extremely welcome)
@sundogplanets in Finnish there is "oma lehmä ojassa" lit. "[to have] one's own cow in the ditch", meaning having a vested interest or ulterior motive
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For no reason at all, please give me your favourite cow-related figures of speech! (Stuff like "No use crying over spilled milk" or "until the cows come home", puns extremely welcome)
@sundogplanets in Dutch 'oude koeien uit de sloot halen' or 'dragging old cows out of the ditch' means to bring up old unpleasant topics.
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For no reason at all, please give me your favourite cow-related figures of speech! (Stuff like "No use crying over spilled milk" or "until the cows come home", puns extremely welcome)
@sundogplanets It’s a moo issue. (I.e. an issue that is so unimportant that only cows care about it.) Courtesy of Friends’ Joey
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But since you asked for puns:
- Why is it difficult to hit a cow?
- Because it's a mooing target.(disclaimer: don't hit cows.)
@quincy @sundogplanets That reminds me of a commentator's description of an English footballer who wasn't having much luck in front of goal: "he couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo!"
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@sundogplanets oh, I've just remembered another one!
When I was dawdling over something as a kid, she'd get frustrated and say, "We'll be here until the cows come home."@jetlagjen @sundogplanets when my Donegal uncle wasn't that impressed with our tin whistle playing he'd say "Is that the tune the auld cow died of?"
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For no reason at all, please give me your favourite cow-related figures of speech! (Stuff like "No use crying over spilled milk" or "until the cows come home", puns extremely welcome)
@sundogplanets
Portuguese (at least Brazilian) has "a vaca foi pro brejo", roughly translates as "the cow went to the swamp" and means "things went to shit". -
For no reason at all, please give me your favourite cow-related figures of speech! (Stuff like "No use crying over spilled milk" or "until the cows come home", puns extremely welcome)
A Finnish saying:
“Katsoo kuin lehmä uutta porttia.”
“Watches like a cow at a new gate.”
As a cow may get confused in front of a new thing, just stops there and stares, so may a person.
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@joat @sundogplanets Interesting! I heard it growing up (US Southeast) but never "got it"!
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@sundogplanets "el que se quema con leche, ve una vaca y llora".
"he who gets burned with milk, starts crying when they see a cow".
Meaning people become more sensitive/alert/careful when they see the first symptoms of a very bad past experience.
@mdione @sundogplanets lol, in Turkish there is “whose mouth got burned from milk will blow on yogurt before they eat”
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@JonasJRichter @sundogplanets there is a whole low-german folk song "Herrn Pastor sien Kauh" with countless verses of what the whole village gets from the carcass of that priests cow that just died - from the fire department getting a new pot of greese for their truck, the sexton a new bell pull, the painter a new brush, the local beauty a new set of hymen, the marching band a new drumskin, the old lady a new set of dentures to Napoleon getting a flea and the neighbour state the head as heraldic symbol for the flag...
@jollyorc @JonasJRichter @sundogplanets The US equivalent folksong is "The Sow Took The Measles (and She Died in the Spring)". Thimble made out of her nose, pickles made from her feet, etc.
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For no reason at all, please give me your favourite cow-related figures of speech! (Stuff like "No use crying over spilled milk" or "until the cows come home", puns extremely welcome)
@sundogplanets "if we assume a spherical cow..."
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From Norway:
"'Smaken er som baken,' sa kjerringa som kyssa kua" ('Tastes differ', said the wife who kissed the cow.)
"Kua gløymar ho har vore kalv" (The cow forgets she was once a calf -- typically said when someone is complaining about or berating the youth.)
"Det var ikkje eit kuverd" ([The loss] wasn't the value of a cow -- "It could have been worse.")
"Som ei ku i grøn eng" (Like a cow in a green meadow -- having it good, being in a good position.)
@skjeggtroll @sundogplanets My dad used to say "To each his own, said the man as he kissed the cow." He also had this rhyme: "I kiss the friendly brown-eyed cow/Who gives me milk and cheese;/ And now I'm lying in my crib/With hoof-and-mouth disease."
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@joat @sundogplanets oh, maybe that's why Mum learned that phrase!
She grew up in Northern Ireland and it would not surprise me if some teachers there tried to use it to teach PR. She now says it as an exaggerated "hoi noi, broin coi?" -
For no reason at all, please give me your favourite cow-related figures of speech! (Stuff like "No use crying over spilled milk" or "until the cows come home", puns extremely welcome)
@sundogplanets Vachelation = Dithering between standing up or lying down.
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For no reason at all, please give me your favourite cow-related figures of speech! (Stuff like "No use crying over spilled milk" or "until the cows come home", puns extremely welcome)
@sundogplanets in Egypt we say "we say that's a bull but you keep saying let's milk it" نقول طور، تقولوا احلبوه. Used when someone refuses to give up on an idea that won't work. In Egypt there's native buffalo's جاموس where females have horns like bulls (hence the confusion) it's even featured on the 5 pound banknotes
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For no reason at all, please give me your favourite cow-related figures of speech! (Stuff like "No use crying over spilled milk" or "until the cows come home", puns extremely welcome)
@sundogplanets French vachement = a lot (like a cow). Don't know whether they 're still saying it, but "vachement chouette" (very pretty / as owl like a cow) was a thing in the 80s.
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@sundogplanets
Finnish:
Laskee kuin lehmän häntä
(Something) drops (decreases) like a cow's tail@immersfer @sundogplanets That's what my teacher at grade school used to say when the class did poorly in exam.
