Tarzan of the Flowerpot

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

If you want to describe people who have an overly high opinion of themselves, maybe they’re a little too self-congratulatory. There’s some handy Spanish slang that’ll do the trick.

In English, we might say somebody’s full of themselves. But in Argentina, you might describe such a person as Tarzan de Maceta, which translates as Tarzan of the flower pot.

Tarzan of the flower pot. Yeah.

Or you might call them Yeti de freezer. The Yeti of the freezer. The Yeti of the freezer. Yeah.

You can also say the equivalent of Aquaman of the toilet.

Oh, no. Aquaman of the toilet. That’s terrible.

And I got those from Adam Sharp. He’s an author of quirky books about words and trivia, including The Correct Order of Biscuits and Euphemisms That Get on My You-Know-Whats.

And you can follow him on social media. He’s always talking about these kinds of things, and they’re lots of fun.

Oh, that sounds lots of fun. I’m still thinking about Tarzan of the flower pot. He’s not king of the apes. What is he, king of the ants?

Yeah, such a great picture. And we know people like this.

We do. You’re not one of them.

Martha and I are always collecting idioms from everywhere in the world.

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