Cultural Idiom Variations

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Jo, and I’m calling from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Hi, Jo, how are you doing?

Hey, Jo.

Hi.

How are you, Grant and Martha?

Excellent.

Finer than frogs here, what can we do for you?

Well, when I was in high school many years ago, I was a senior, and my best friend was dating the foreign exchange students from Spain. And so since we were taking Spanish, we would often converse with him in Spanish, and he wanted to learn more about, you know, using English correctly. And one day my friend said something like, oh, well, you know, two heads are better than one. And he got this quizzical look on his face and said, well, what does that mean? And so, of course, we explained. And he said, well, they didn’t have anything like that in Spanish, but they did have four eyes are better than two, which we thought was quite humorous.

So over the years, I’ve just wondered if other cultures and other languages have idioms like that, and do they always refer to body parts, or do they use other equivalents?

It’s interesting that you frame it in terms of body parts, because there are so many of those in different languages. You said he was from Spain?

Yeah, he was from Barcelona, and they did speak Catalan there.

Well, yeah, I was going to say, because I’ve come across a Catalan expression before that goes, two heads think better than just one, but five are just many of them. I kind of like that.

Five are just many of them?

Yeah, it’s like two heads are better than one, but I think the idea is five is just too many.

Too many, gotcha, right.

Yeah.

That’s like too many fingers in the pot or something like that.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But you do see variations of the two heads are better than one or two heads think better than one. I think there’s another Spanish expression that uses the verb for think. And in Portuguese, same thing. The verb for think rather than just are. And then in Hungarian, there’s a phrase that goes, more eyes can see more, which is the same idea.

Oh, yes.

And then there’s one in Turkish that also uses different body parts. It goes, one hand has nothing, two hands have sound.

Oh, nice.

Isn’t that nice? I like that.

Yeah, I like that. That’s kind of very zen-like.

Very zen-like, exactly. Turkish zen.

Well, I did a little research, too, and I found that the French and the Italians have a lot of things that don’t relate to one thing being better than another. But I found the French say, instead of to cost an arm and a leg, they say to cost the eyes from your head.

Ooh, ouch.

I know. And then the Italians have one. They say to have one’s eyes lined with ham.

To have one’s eyes lined with ham?

Is that when your eyes are bigger than your stomach?

No, it’s when you can’t see what’s clearly in front of you.

Oh.

Oh, yeah. I found a website that had some lovely, just really hilarious one. Yeah, I think there’s a German expression like that that translates something like you have tomatoes on your eyes or something like that.

Did you come across that?

No, I didn’t find that one.

Yeah.

Well, language is written on the body.

Sure.

It is.

I guess so.

Yeah.

Helps us with metaphors. I found lots with references to body parts, to food, and to animals. Things we all share, part of the human experience everywhere, right?

Yeah.

I guess so. Yeah, I guess so.

Well, cool. Thank you so much, Jo. Really appreciate you thinking about this and sharing it with us.

Well, thanks for taking my call.

Yeah, our pleasure. Take care now.

Okay, thanks. Bye.

Bye-bye.

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