This being an international site, occasionally someone drops a phrase from their culture I never would have heard of otherwise. I often find them quite interesting, and so I would like to ask people what some of the idioms are in their respective cultures.


JIC it's needed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiom

I have no idea if some idioms are also used elsewhere, but e.g.:

"Toimii kuin junan vessa." = "Works like a train toilet."

Means basically the same as "Works like a clockwork.", ie. something works perfectly and as expected.

I have no idea if train toilets really are that dependable as the idiom states. Maybe it is referring to the old kind of simple train toilets which just flushed all the feces and nice stuff onto the train track, ie. there was no plumbing or anything that could get broken.

I like to say the idiom in a form of "Smells like a train toilet.", that I can at least understand.

Yeah well, there was a time where swiss train toilets were flushing all the faces and nice stuff back on the sender himself. A friend of mine has experienced it, and it became the theme of parodic songs in France. So, yeah, I was not sure how to interpret your idiom there...

That last one is very interesting. First heard it from someone about 15 years ago, only with the variation of "If you can't blind them with brilliance..." Hadn't heard or seen it used by anyone else until your statement.

I... know SOMEONE who has used a version of this as a title for his research on routine corruption.

That is certainly unexpected inspiration for a saying.

My favorite one I heard here was something like, "I don't want to be a stone on anyone's foot"

A friend of mine once told someone from out of the states "Goodnight, and don't let the bed bugs bite," and he got super pissed thinking she was implying he was dirty and one could expect to find bugs in his bed. I like it. Makes good sense. Better than some do for sure.

Well lets see, we have Rush Limbaugh, Kato Kaelin, Kathy Lee Gifford, pretty much everyone who has ever been on MTVs 'Real World', Fiona Apple.....oh wait....you said Idioms. OOOPS!

Another one is "käyttää aasinsiltana", ie "use as a donkey bridge". I presume "donkey bridge" means some kind of small bridge used to get donkeys over a river or something, not a bridge made out of donkeys.

I think it means that you use the current discussion to divert it to something completely different subject that you'd like to discuss instead.

I remembered that because I "accidentally" used it in one work meeting recently where there were participants from several countries, and the Finnish participants started chuckling, while the international participants were baffled by what I had just said. I think I said something like (in English):

"Sorry to use this as an ass bridge, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on...".

Ass is the same as a donkey, right? :) I just couldn't think of a proper English idiom there so I translated a Finnish one instead. Maybe I should have just said "Sorry to divert this discussion, but...".

Well, let me see... here are some italian idioms: I don't think anyone ever used them on a forum, but knowing them might be interesting, especially because we use them pretty often in everyday life.

-Ogni morte di Papa: "Every time a Pope dies" means "extremely rarely" (I always found that hilarious, we have a very... controversial relationship with the Catholic Church)

-Tra il dire e il fare c'è di mezzo il mare: means "Between saying and doing is the sea", the fact that good intentions are not easily followed by good actions.

-Essere al verde: "to be at the green", it means that one is broke. This one is ancient: it comes from a common use of the medieval italian city-states, were everyone that could not repay debts was forced to wear a green cap in sign of shame, so to alert other potential contracting parties.

I didn't know that! Could they have similar historic roots? Well, it seems today I learned something new! :)
I remembered a couple more:

-In bocca al lupo: "into the wolf's mouth", means "good luck", and the proper response is "Crepi!", "May the wolf die"! The meaning of this one is obvious.

-Alzare il gomito: "to rise the elbow", means "drinking too much".

-Gallina vecchia fa buon brodo: "old chicken makes good soup" I'll leave to you the interpretation of this one, since it could be used for almost anything!

We say "Once in a blue moon," but I guess that works too.
I think it's a new world thing. In business graphs profits are often shown in black (we are in the black, company xyz is in the black) and deficits are shown in red. (Nintendo is in the red)