I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms From Around the World (7 page)

EARS

• To lower the ears:
  to give in, in a dispute (Spanish)
  
• To flatten the ear:
  to sleep (Spanish, Mexico)
  
• To iron one’s ear:
  to go to sleep (Spanish)
  
• To have fallen ears:
  to be crestfallen (Spanish)
  
• Water into the ear of someone sleeping:
  a shock (Japanese)
  
• Ear-nectar:
  a sweet voice or sound (Hindi)
  
• Hearing test:
  call with nothing to say (Russian)
  
• I’m not hanging noodles on your ears:
  I’m not pulling your leg (Russian)
  
• To warm somebody’s ear:
  to chastise (French)
  
• Like a Volkswagen with doors open:
  having big ears (Spanish)
  

NOSE

• A fly on the nose:
  a chip on the shoulder (Italian)
  
• Soldering iron:
  a big nose (French)
  
• He doesn’t wipe his nose with his foot:
  he has ideas above his station (French)
  
• Like a lung and liver on my nose:
  like a hole in the head (Yiddish)
  
• To break someone’s nose:
  to discourage (Japanese)
  
• To hang something on one’s nose:
  to be vain (Japanese)
  

I’m not hanging noodles on your ears
Russian: I’m not pulling your leg

• To speak through the nose:
  to sweet talk (Japanese)
  
• To speak through the nose:
  to double talk (Yiddish)
  
• A wax-nose:
  one who changes opinions easily (Hindi)
  
• To make one’s own nose taller:
  to boast (Japanese)
  
• Bring one’s nose against someone’s:
  face to face (Japanese)
  
• To make nose medicine effective:
  to bribe (Japanese)
  
• Earn oneself a golden nose:
  make a lot of money (German)
  
• Having the nose cut off:
  to be in disgrace (Hindi)
  
• To take off the nose ring:
  to become a widow (Hindi)
  
• A hair of the nose:
  respected, honored (Hindi)
  
• To keep one’s nose:
  to keep one’s honor (Hindi)
  
• Move the wings of one’s nose incessantly:
  have a swelled head (Japanese)
  
• With eyes and nose attached:
  almost complete (Japanese)
  
• The line of the nose:
  straight as an arrow (Hindi)
  
• You got your nose burned:
  you had your leg pulled (Persian)
  
• To pull the worms out of the nose:
  to tell all (German)
  
• To pull the hair out of someone’s nostrils:
  to dupe someone (Japanese)
  

MOUTH & TEETH

• At the flower of the lip:
  on the tip of the tongue (Spanish, Latin America)
  
• Three inches of a tongue:
  glib tongue, sweet talk (Japanese)
  
• A cat’s tongue:
  to be sensitive to heat (Japanese)
  
• To use two tongues:
  to tell a lie (Japanese)
  
• Have a well-hung tongue:
  to be eloquent (French)
  
• Long tongue:
  says too much (Spanish)
  
• Long-tongued:
  impudent, abusive (Hindi)
  
• Box of lies:
  the mouth (French)
  
• Have potatoes in the mouth:
  speak unclearly (Spanish, Chile)
  
• Honey-mouthed and dagger-hearted:
  hypocritical (Chinese)
  
• To produce wind at the corners of one’s mouth:
  to be eloquent (Chinese)
  
• To have a hard tooth:
  to have a sharp tongue (French)
  
• To loosen one’s teeth:
  something that’s nauseating (Japanese)
  
• To not put clothes on one’s teeth:
  to tell it like it is (Japanese)
  
• One’s teeth itch:
  one feels important (Japanese)
  
• Itchy teeth:
  gossip (Russian)
  
• To break teeth:
  be ruined (Russian)
  
• Have a tooth:
  hold a grudge (Russian)
  
• To seize the moon by the teeth:
  to try to do the impossible (French)
  
• Feigned laughter ruins the teeth:
  proverb (India)
  
• Having neither innards nor teeth:
  a very poor person (Hindi)
  
• A tooth gift:
  a love bite (Hindi)
  

CHEST

• At pure lung:
  working very hard (Spanish, Latin America)
  
• One’s breast is deep:
  big-hearted (Japanese)
  
• One’s chest bounces:
  to get excited (Japanese)
  
• Make one’s chest jump:
  to be excited (Japanese)
  
• Having the breast torn:
  to be grieving (Hindi)
  
• Something floats in one’s chest:
  something crosses one’s mind (Japanese)
  
• To bend one’s chest backward:
  to take pride in (Japanese)
  
• Won’t fit in one’s chest:
  weighing on one’s mind (Spanish)
  
• Attack my lung:
  give me a cigarette (Spanish, Mexico)
  

STOMACH/TORSO/MIDRIFF/BACK

• To give of stomach:
  to throw up (Italian)
  
• To have liver:
  to have heart (Italian)
  
• To have livers:
  to have cold feet (French)
  
• Open up one’s liver and gall:
  unburden oneself (Japanese)
  
• Chisel something into one’s liver:
  take something to heart (Japanese)
  
• One’s liver is extracted:
  dumbfounded (Japanese)
  
• To be a liver:
  to be a pain, a jerk (Spanish, Mexico)
  
• To have kidneys:
  to be brave (Spanish)
  
• Belly with calluses:
  a sycophant (Spanish, Chile)
  
• Belly of a seal:
  a sycophant (Spanish, Chile)
  
• One’s belly is ready:
  to be resolved (Japanese)
  
• One’s belly balloons:
  to get frustrated (Japanese)
  
• One’s belly is thick:
  big-hearted (Japanese)
  
• One’s belly gets cured:
  to calm down (Japanese)
  
• One’s belly is black:
  to be deceitful (Japanese)
  
• One’s belly is rotten:
  to be despicable (Japanese)
  
• One’s belly is transparent:
  to have clear intentions (Japanese)
  
• One’s belly boils over:
  to be furious (Japanese)
  
• There’s something in someone’s belly:
  an ulterior motive (Japanese)
  
• To cure one’s belly:
  to get revenge (Japanese)
  
• To tighten one’s belly:
  to be resolved (Japanese)
  
• To see through someone’s belly:
  to read someone’s mind (Japanese)
  
• To search someone’s belly:
  to feel someone out (Japanese)
  
• In the chaos of a belly standing up:
  an angry fit (Japanese)
  
• Mercury in one’s belly:
  ants in one’s pants (German)
  
• Black-bellied:
  wicked, evil (Japanese)
  
• Broken-bellied:
  starving (Hindi)
  
• One’s stomach skin is distorted:
  to die laughing (Japanese)
  
• To sink the stomach:
  to suffer indigestion (Hindi)
  
• Like the bowels being removed:
  numb (Japanese)
  
• One’s intestines are torn:
  heartbroken (Japanese)
  
• One’s intestines are rotten:
  morally corrupt (Japanese)
  
• With all entrails:
  everything included (Russian)
  
• Stomach-fire:
  the digestion (Hindi)
  
• To feel a throb around the ribs:
  an omen of a friend’s visit (Hindi)
  
• Bury an umbilical cord:
  a hereditary claim on land (Hindi)
  
• To scratch someone’s back:
  to outsmart (Japanese)
  
• Get with one’s own hump:
  by the sweat of one’s brow (Russian)
  
• Only the grave can fix a hump:
  a leopard can’t change its spots (Russian)
  
• Make backbone and ribs one:
  beat unmercifully (Hindi)
  
• Show one’s back:
  reveal a weak point (Japanese)
  

NAVELS

• I’ll make tea with my navel:
  don’t make me laugh, don’t pull my leg (Japanese)
  
• One’s navel boils tea:
  it’s laughable (Japanese)
  
• To twist one’s navel:
  to sulk (Japanese)
  
• A twisted navel:
  a pervert (Japanese)
  
• Bent belly button:
  a cantankerous person (Japanese)
  
• To gnaw one’s own navel:
  to regret something deeply (Japanese)
  
• To harden one’s own navel:
  to be resolved (Japanese)
  
• Many thanks in your belly button:
  thanks for nothing (Yiddish)
  
• Onions should grow from your navel:
  an insult (Yiddish)
  
• The navel of the world:
  the hub of the universe (German)
  
• Good health to your belly button:
  thanks for the small favor (Yiddish)
  

To pull up the bottom of one’s kimono to reveal the buttocks
Japanese: to maintain a defiant attitude

BUTTS
*

• Wet one’s butt in:
  get deeply involved (Spanish)
  
• To grasp someone’s tail:
  to obtain evidence (Japanese)
  
• To have light buttocks:
  to be rash, not careful (Japanese)
  
• To have heavy buttocks:
  to be slow to act (Japanese)
  
• One’s bottom is stretching:
  to stay too long (Japanese)
  
• One’s buttocks split:
  to bring something bad to light (Japanese)
  
• One’s bottom catches fire:
  time is running out (Japanese)
  

To light one’s fingernail
Japanese: to lead a frugal life

• Pull up one’s kimono to reveal buttocks:
  to maintain a defiant attitude (Japanese)
  
• Pot with a rounded bottom:
  an undependable person (Hindi)
  
• To have a butt fringed with noodles:
  to be very lucky (French)
  
• To wiggle your bucket:
  to dance (Spanish, Mexico)
  
• May a pine tree grow out of your butt:
  curse (Portuguese)
  
• To make a little perfume
  *
  :
  to break wind (Italian)
  
• A river imp’s fart:
  something that’s easy (Japanese)
  
• He squirms like a fart in a foggy soup:
  he’s bewildered (Yiddish)
  
• To fart higher than your butt:
  to be snooty, posh, put on airs (French)
  

ARMS/HANDS/SHOULDERS

• To breathe through one’s shoulder:
  to gasp for breath (Japanese)
  
• Knows where to bite the shoulder:
  can seize an opportunity (Arabic)
  
• Shoulders to be peeled:
  to be very crowded (Hindi)
  
• To look on over one’s shoulder:
  to look down on (German)
  
• From the stranger’s shoulder:
  used clothing (Russian)
  
• To be the armpit
  *
  of confidence:
  trust completely (Spanish, Nicaragua)
  
• To dig in one’s elbows:
  to study hard (Spanish)
  
• To bite the elbow:
  to cry over split milk (Russian)
  
• To talk even through the elbows:
  to be a chatterbox (Spanish)
  
• Like a hand coming out of one’s throat:
  a yearning (Japanese)
  
• One whose hands are fast:
  a womanizer (Japanese)
  
• One’s hands get empty:
  to have time on one’s hands (Japanese)
  
• With a hand kiss:
  with the greatest pleasure (German)
  
• To handle with salted hands:
  to raise with tender care (Japanese)
  
• Look through the fingers:
  turn a blind eye (Russian)
  
• Hide between the fingers:
  to steal, to pilfer (Hindi)
  
• Show the thumb:
  a contemptuous gesture (Hindi)
  
• Brew the dirt from someone’s fingernails and drink it:
  to learn a bitter lesson from someone (Japanese)
  
• To be fingernail and dirt:
  tight friends (Spanish, Mexico)
  
• To burn on one’s nails:
  urgent (German)
  
• To light one’s fingernail:
  to lead a frugal life (Japanese)
  
• To have blue nails:
  to be near death (Hindi)