It’s a Monkey’s Wedding

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, Martha. Hello, Grant. My name is Almira, and I’m calling from St. Paul, Minnesota.

Hi, Almira. How are you doing? Welcome to the show.

Well, it’s such an honor to be in your program. I love your show.

Thank you very much.

Great to have you.

Yeah, we’re glad to have you on the show. How can we help you, Almira?

I’m from Natal, a city in the northeast of Brazil. Growing up, we were always used to have interesting expressions, and we had one that when it was rainy and sunny at the same time, we always said, oh, sudo con sol, casamento de raposa con ruchno, which means rain and sun, the marriage between a fox and a nightingale. And I thought, you know, could this be done in other languages as well? Is it a custom for other people to say things like that? And I thought I would call Martha and Grant and see what’s going on.

Oh, what a great question.

That’s a good one.

Yes, indeed.

Yes, now what does that mean to you? I mean, I know literally it means the sun is shining and it’s raining, but why do you think? I mean, it means something strange is going on because they’re opposites to each other.

Exactly.

That’s exactly it. And all over the world there are all these expressions like this that reflect this kind of bizarre union of unlikely things because it is that exactly. If you’re talking about the rain coming down at the same time that the sun is shining, and all over the world you find expressions like, oh, in Korea, I think it’s a fox and a tiger getting married. I think actually in parts of Brazil, snails get married. Have you ever heard that one?

No, I have not.

But Brazil is so big that I suspect there would be other expressions.

Yeah.

Oh, wonderful. No, I didn’t know other people said that.

Yes, and in English, often the expression is, it’s a monkey’s wedding, or the monkeys are getting married. Or the devil’s wedding. And there’s some very unkind ones about the devil beating his wife.

Yeah, yeah, we get that question all the time. These variants are pervasive throughout the European cultures, throughout the Asian cultures, everywhere the language has been recorded. People have noted that this is odd because ordinarily the fox would eat the nightingale, right? That’s why it’s weird.

Right.

I would be darned. I didn’t know that. You know, as you can imagine, sitting right in the tropicals under the equator, this happened practically every day. And do you get a rainbow afterward?

Most of the time. But, you know, the thing was, it was raining and it was sunny at the same time. And as we kids, we loved it.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it’s gorgeous, isn’t it?

Yes.

Well, it’s a pleasure talking with you. So I’ve been listening to your program for so long, and it’s been just wonderful to be here.

Amira, thank you so much for calling.

Thank you. We really appreciate it.

Ciao, ciao.

Ciao. Thank you again.

Bye-bye.

And in a lot of countries, it’s somebody’s giving birth, an animal, a hyena or a fox or some creature is giving birth, right?

Yeah. You usually get a sense of some kind of folklore behind it. I mean, like, we often get that question about the devil beating his wife, which is sort of a grisly expression. There’s one notion that maybe it has to do with the devil being angry that the sun is shining.

Right, that the day might be beautiful instead of terrible like he wants it.

Yes, yes. And so he’s beating his wife, and those are her tears, the rain.

So there are many long lists of these words all over the Internet, and we will try to find some of the best ones and point them out to you. Hundreds and hundreds of items on these lists.

Call us with your language questions, 877-929-9673, or send them an email to words@waywordradio.org.