El muerto...

El muerto...
 

How would you translate "el muerto al hoyo y el vivo al bollo"?

María, it seems nobody is biting the hook, so I'm risk making a fool of myself by adivinando. This saying doesn't translate directly to English.
The dead go to the tomb and the living go to the bank. Is that what this
means?

In English there is a saying that goes, "where there's a will theres a way"
"donde existe el deseo, existe el modo de dominar el deseo."
In English we have a play on words for this saying that is pretty funny and
it is related to "el muerto al hoyo y el vivo al bollo".
Please try to complete the final word Spanish speakers only you have about 45 minutes. No native English-speakers please:

Where there's a will there's a (fill in the blank)

I have no idea how to finish your expression. I only know the traditional one.
About "el muerto..." it means that even if somebody dies, those who stay alive keep on enjoying life.

Well, I was close but slightly off.
And the answer is:Where there's a will there's a relative.

Significa que lo pasado no importa y que ha de poner empeño al presente.

Lo muerto, muerto está.
Lo pasado, pasado está.

Life goes on.
Let bygones be bygones.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
Let the dead bury their dead.

I think life goes on and let the dead bury their dead are very good translations.
But I always thought that to let sleeping dogs lie meant you shoudn't bring up things from the past that are better forgotten ( as in Agatha Christie's book of the same title)

Agreed. That is certainly a meaning of let sleeping dogs lie.

Simply stated, it means allow inactive problems to remain so. This means, to me at least, that even though a problem may have happened, it can remain a problem of the past and there is no need to rehash it. Certainly, some problems may fall into the best forgotten category, as you said. Other troubling events, like the death of someone, can be remembered our whole lives through. However, even though we remember them, we can choose not to let them upset (ruin) the present.
This is what I had in mind when I added the old proverb to the list.

We generally say let sleeping dogs lie whenever we discover that someone can't leave a problem in the past (including the death of someone). But, like you, I agree that something less harsh sounding, like life goes on, is a better thing to say in this case.

En México el dicho es:

El muerto al pozo y el vivo al gozo

Indeed.......Life goes on!

Elaina:cool: