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La pescadilla que se muerde la cola

 

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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  #11  
Old July 01, 2012, 08:15 PM
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JPablo JPablo is offline
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¡Epa!
Disco rayado...
Muy diferente del queso rallado.

En inglés yo he oído sobre todo lo de "the snake biting its own tail"...
Like in "old" physics, someone defining and/or describing "time" in terms of "energy", "energy" in terms of "matter", "matter" in terms of "space", and "space" in terms of "time".

Or "circular definitions", as in
-"What is a 'bla'?"
-A 'bla' is a 'bliblu'...
-"What's a 'bliblu'?
-A 'bliblu' is a 'big bloo'...
-What is a 'big bloo'?
-Its a 'bla'.
(So, that 'fully clarifies what a 'bla' is, of course!)

Or like the old song, (maybe by J. Sabina or A. Krae...)
-¿Por qué estás tan triste?
-Porque no trabajo... (then the song goes all over different reasons to come back to the same question...)

(My two cents and a half.)
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  #12  
Old July 01, 2012, 10:47 PM
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wrholt wrholt is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JPablo View Post
..
Or like the old song, (maybe by J. Sabina or A. Krae...)
-¿Por qué estás tan triste?
-Porque no trabajo... (then the song goes all over different reasons to come back to the same question...)...
And in English there is: "There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza", "Well then fix it, dear Georgie", "With what shall I fix it, dear Liza", ... coming back around to "There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza".
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  #13  
Old July 02, 2012, 04:02 AM
Don José Don José is offline
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Originally Posted by Rusty View Post
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Escrito originalmente por Don José
I'm sure there are a lot of young people who have never heard of a broken record (or disco rallado).
That's for sure.
Thanks for the corrections, but I have a question. I understand that "who have never heard of a broken record" means that they don't know what a "broken record" is, but I was trying to say that they don't have the experience of hearing the same thing over and over when listening a broken record. Is there any chance I was right?
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  #14  
Old July 02, 2012, 07:01 AM
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Originally Posted by Don José View Post
Thanks for the corrections, but ... I was trying to say that they don't have the experience of hearing the same thing over and over when listening to a broken record. Is there any chance I was right?
Yes, you were right. I made the wrong assumption.

By the way, when I corrected "there is a lot of young people" to "there are a lot of young people", I was also making another assumption - that you interpret the words the same way I do. There are people who say 'there is a lot of young people" and, according to several grammarians, we're BOTH correct. So, you had NO errors in your English.

How BOTH of us can be correct is simply a matter of how we interpret the words. Some regard 'lot' as being the main noun and disregard the prepositional phrase that follows it. Since 'lot' is a singular noun, the verb that follows the prepositional phrase will always be conjugated to agree with the singular subject 'lot' - 'a lot ... is'. So, if this is what you were thinking, you used correct English.
Others don't consider 'lot' by itself, but attest that 'a lot of' is just another way to say 'much' (if the following noun is singular) or 'many' (if the following noun is plural). I adhere to this school of thought. 'A lot of people are' is just another way to say 'many people are', so I also used correct English.

Last edited by Rusty; July 02, 2012 at 07:55 AM. Reason: added the two-schools-of-thought portion
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  #15  
Old July 02, 2012, 12:07 PM
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Thanks again.
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  #16  
Old July 03, 2012, 12:24 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JPablo View Post
¡Epa!
Disco rayado...
Muy diferente del queso rallado.

En inglés yo he oído sobre todo lo de "the snake biting its own tail"...
Like in "old" physics, someone defining and/or describing "time" in terms of "energy", "energy" in terms of "matter", "matter" in terms of "space", and "space" in terms of "time".

Or "circular definitions", as in
-"What is a 'bla'?"
-A 'bla' is a 'bliblu'...
-"What's a 'bliblu'?
-A 'bliblu' is a 'big bloo'...
-What is a 'big bloo'?
-Its a 'bla'.
(So, that 'fully clarifies what a 'bla' is, of course!)

Or like the old song, (maybe by J. Sabina or A. Krae...)
-¿Por qué estás tan triste?
-Porque no trabajo... (then the song goes all over different reasons to come back to the same question...)

(My two cents and a half.)
You are so wise!!

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  #17  
Old July 03, 2012, 01:42 PM
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I am blushing...

But I found this...
HORACE said, "Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone"
EURIPIDES said, "Cleverness is not wisdom."

But, thank anyway...
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