Sweating Carrots Like an Otter

The English language has a variety of expressions referring to the excretion of moisture from the skin due to heat. There’s the verb perspire and the Yiddish borrowing schvitz. If you perspire profusely, you may sweat buckets, or be sweating like a sinner in church. The Spanish idiom sudar como un pollo means “to sweat like a chicken,” a reference to juices exuding from a bird as it roasts. One Dutch idiom translates as “sweating like an otter,” and another as “sweating little carrots,” possibly because the Dutch word for “little carrots,” peentjes, sounds a lot like Dutch for “pints.” This is part of a complete episode.