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Donde no hay mata, no hay patata

 

An idiom is an expression whose meaning is not readily apparent based on the individual words in the expression. This forum is dedicated to discussing idioms and other sayings.


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  #1  
Old May 02, 2011, 06:25 AM
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Exclamation Donde no hay mata, no hay patata

It means " de donde no hay no se puede sacar" That is used when sb is not very clever, is there an equivalent in English, using potato?
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Old May 02, 2011, 06:34 AM
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I don't think there is any similar in English
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Old May 02, 2011, 06:38 AM
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Not with potato, but you can say:
"You can't get blood out of a stone"
or , "You can't get a turnip to bleed."

These phrases can be used to mean don't expect something that cannot render to render
examples:don't expect get money from a pauper,
don't expect brilliance from a dummy
etc.

By the way the blood -out-of- a- stone phrase is much more common than the turnip phrase.
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Old May 02, 2011, 07:31 AM
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thank you very much.
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Old May 02, 2011, 08:04 AM
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Is the phrase used exclusively to describe someone who isn't clever, or
does it have wider meaning as similar phrases in English do?
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