Flying Elephants

Water > Hear > Lebanese society > Flying elephants (and other ways of speakign funny)

The Lebanese language is remarkably graphic. It is abundantly punctuated by expressions whose zaniness appears afresh when we stop and think about what they mean. I received a joke yesterday called "a Lebanese telling his adventure in English", that was deliberately stuffed with such expressions, translated into English. This motivated me to write this article. I added a few things to the joke; I'll let you read it all before translating it into proper English and giving you the story behind each expression.

THE STORY

From some 2 months 3, I recognized a girl in the tooth of the elephant. She was other look and like the moon! My head lit up! Burn her religion what beautiful. I tried to touch her pulse to see if there is opportunity and it appeared that she is interested.

The first day I talked her on the phone and the second day she invited me on the lunch. I asked her "What you kitchenized?", she said "Some of his mother's yoghurt on the walking". I liked her project and said "I am to you father of two". Before I arrived to her, I went to the Milker and bought some lady's arms and some "eat and say thank you".

She opened me the door and when she saw the handsome in my hand she said "Yiiiii! your hands be safe, why torture yourself my uncle?".

We were so hungry we charged on the food. She asked if I liked the work of her hands. I said "Destroy your taste, it makes crazy! It takes the wisdom!"

While we are eating, rang the doorbell. She opened the door and entered her old boyfriend. He asked her "Who is he?", she said "Not your entry".

His shape a finished jackass. I knew straight he wanted to problemize it. On little the bowl was lost. He said "My eye on you and on him, I will count God not create you!". I said "Look, my head does not carry me, break the evil before the gypsy milk goes up huh! Go pave the sea if you want to whiten face now!" I looked him a look.

The man felt on his blood and left the room. After a minute he was gone gone. I'd have wrung his breadth and he'd have eaten a killing. In the truth, he poisoned my body very much, but the girl gave breakfast to my nerves. She said "Don't carry worry, my life don't carry worry, put your hands in cold water". I told her "Like my foot, don't get a mind. People like him come out of my nose. Tell me, are you empty tonight?" She said "yes, I emptify myself for you". Elephants! I told her "Thank you my lover, you are very digestable".

THE COMMENTARY

Sentence: From some 2 months 3, I recognized a girl in the tooth of the elephant.
Translation: Two or three months ago, I met a girl in Sin-el-Fil.

- The verbs "meet", "know", "recognize" and several others are all declensions of the root verb "know".

- Sin-el-Fil is an area in Beirut, and the name translated means "the tooth of the elephant". An odd name, but its history is even more odd! The place was actually called Saint-Theophile by the French under the mandate, but local use morphed it into the close-sounding Sin-el-Fil.

She was other look and like the moon! My head lit up! Burn her religion what beautiful.
She was something else and beautiful as the moon! My head started spinning. My God how beautiful!

- "Other look" or "other shape" (gheir shekl) is a clear enough local equivalent to "something else". Someone at work though used the expression "gheir modÂle", as in the very term used for models within a car make. That sent the women present into peals of laughter -- "Really, was she a convertible?" New quirky expressions of this sort keep appearing, and I think there are two factors that make them so delightful. The first is that they use unexpected combinations of languages (like "gheir modÂle" does). The second is that everyone is used to thinking in several languages, so whatever we hear we tend to translate into our mother language, bringing out the weirdness in the process.

- In Arabic, the most beautiful thing a person can be compared to is the moon. Saying a woman or man is like the moon is equivalent to saying in English that they have the beauty of a Greek god/dess.

- A vivid image is the expression "dawwa rasse", "my head lit up (like a lightbulb)". It's used for stupefying situations, be it amazement, utter confusion, shock, or a strong reaction ("I saw that he had managed to wreck the car in the garage, my head lit up and even the neighbours could hear me yelling").

- "Burn her religion" (Yahreq deena) is one in a series of curses that include "Crumble your house" and "Shorten your days". They are still used aggressively, but also as emphasis to a statement that follows them --much like "bloody hell she was gorgeous!"

I tried to touch her pulse to see if there is opportunity and it appeared that she is interested.
I probed a bit to see if there was a potential for something to start, and it appeared she was interested.

- Fi majel ("There is opportunity") is used both for possibilities and literal distance, like when you park the car. When asking for something, for instance if you could use the phone, instead of directly using "Can I use the phone?" you can be a little less direct and therefore a little more polite by saying "Is there opportunity for me to use the phone?"

- The liberty taken with the tenses is deliberate. It should give you a glimpse of the way we don't worry too much about grammar in everyday talk. As a matter of fact, we use relatively few verbs -- this should also be apparent in the passage where there are so many nominal sentences.

The first day I talked her on the phone and the second day she invited me on the lunch. I asked her "What you kitchenized?", she said "Some of his mother's yoghurt on the walking".
The first day we spoke on the phone and the second day she invited me over for lunch. I asked her "What did you cook?", she said "Just some laban emmo".

- In Arabic, every verb leads to the associated noun. The words cooking (tabkh) and kitchen (matbakh) are direct derivatives from the verb to cook (tabakha). This is even more true of the Lebanese language where there is virtually no "proper way" of speaking.

- Laban emmo, or "his mother's yogurt", is a dish of rice with a stew of pieces of meat in mint-flavored yogurt.

- "On the walking" is said of somethign done quickly and without hassle. It is equivalent to English "go with it", as in for instance "If I were you I'd go with the green one".

I liked her project and said "I am to you father of two". Before I arrived to her, I went to the Milker and bought some lady's arms and some "eat and say thank you".
I liked that plan and said "I'll be at your place around 2 pm. Before getting there I passed by the Hallab and bought some znood el sitt and kol wushkor.

- The word for "project", "mashrou3", means any planned/designed thing, be it a day out, a residential complex, a plan for the exploitation of a river, a university project...

- Like in French ("chez toi"), we have shortcuts for the idea that requires "at your place" in English. We just say "I'm at you", regardless of whether the person is at home or anyplace else.

- The Hallab, or Milker, is the Oriental equivalent of the bakery or pÂ‰tisserie, where one can buy sweets.

- "Lady's arms" and "eat and say thank you" are the names of two kinds of arabic sweets. They all bear evocative names like these. "Lady's arms" refers to the place below the arm where women tend to develop fat, implying a dainty that's hard to resist. "Eat and say thank you" is obvious enough!

She opened me the door and when she saw the handsome in my hand she said "Yiiiii! your hands be safe, why torture yourself my uncle?".
She opened the door and when she saw the sweets in my hand she said "Ohhhh bless your hands, why on earth trouble yourself?"

- In Lebanese there is one word, "helou", for both the words "sweet", "sweets" and "handsome", "beautiful", hence this pun. I believe that we twisted the use of the arabic word for something that contains sugar, to make it mean something beautiful.

- "Yiiiiii" may be the most characteristic Lebanese expression. I heard that Arabs spoof Lebanese women by going "Yiii!!" at every turn of phrase. It's an all-purpose exclamation that replaces a range of devices going from a gasp to a thoughtful "huh". There is a wide range of ways to say it, too, from the loud high-pitched scream to a voiceless "yuh!"

- "Your hands be safe" is one of a series of blessings used in everyday life in parallel to the curses I mentioned above. Other in the series are "May God lengthen your life", "May he give you prosperity", "May he protect your beloved"... I'll probably write an article just for curses and blessings, as they are an interesting subject on their own.

- We use the word torture so much I thought for a long time it just meant "bother". It's almost always to say "don't torture yourself", "I don't want to be a torture", or just before asking for a favor, "I'm going to torture you". The answer to an apology could be "There was no torture".

- "My uncle" (Ya 3ammeh) is one in a series of expressions that are very hard to translate. You could say "in my uncle's name!..." but that's an approximation, and it's used in a wider range. For instance: "Ya 3ammeh, why??" ("why on earth?"); "Ya 3ammeh I already told you!" ("for heaven's sake I already told you!"); "Yaaaa 3ammeeeeeeh..." (like an exasperated sigh), etc... People actually use the word Uncle to address strange older men on the street. It would not be used with someone who is a potential date. For older women, the word "tante" (aunt in French) is used. It is in a way more respectful to address strangers as Uncle and Aunt than Sir and Madam, because the latter, though deferent, puts a distance between you and the person you're addressing. This setting of a distance is understood here as a sign that you don't like them enough to act as if they were family. By calling them Uncle or Aunt on the other hand, you are compensating the fact that you don't know each other by implying that they are like family to you.

We were so hungry we charged on the food. She asked if I liked the work of her hands. I said "Destroy your taste, it makes crazy! It takes the wisdom!"
We were so hungry we attacked the food. She asked if I liked what she had prepared herself. I said "Goodness, it's so good it's driving me nuts! It's mindblowing!"

- "Destroy your taste" is another one of those curses I mentioned above.

- The expression "to drive crazy" is so widely used to imply something gorgeous or delicious beyond words that it's almost impossible to use it in its literal sense anymore. The word is "bijannen", from the verb "jannana", literally to make crazy. The interesting part is that this comes from the word djinn, the name of those spirits that are the Arabian equivalent of fairies and leprechauns. To go crazy then is literally to become like a djinn. In Europe as well, in some languages "losing one's mind" comes from the word fairy (as in the oldish expression "in a fey mood"). The Provencal "fada", meaning lunatic, used to mean one of those beings.

- When something takes the mind, or the wisdom (same word), it means it's totally beyond our mind. I personally like "it makes the mind fly", because the Lebanese word here implies making something fly in a catapult-like fashion, and I find the image irresistible.

While we are eating, rang the doorbell. She opened the door and entered her old boyfriend. He asked her "Who is he?", she said "Not your entry".
While we were eating the doorbell rang. She opened the door and her ex-boyfriend entered. he asked her "Who is he?", she said "None of your business."

- "Ma dakhalak", or "not your entry", means "you're not to go through that door", or obviously enough -- "none of your business".

His shape a finished jackass. I knew straight he wanted to problemize it. On little the bowl was lost. He said "My eye on you and on him, I will count God not create you!".
He looked like a total jackass. I immediately knew he wanted to start a fight. It would take little for all hell to break loose. He said "I have my eyes on you two, you'll wish you were never born!"

- When we add "finished" (khales) to an adjective, in the meaning of "ultimate", we underline that the person is TOTALLY that and a lost cause. A ultimate jackass is beyond help. Sometimes we even use the word alone, as in "That guy is ultimate".

- To create a "problem" (mashkal) means to start a fight, though not necessarily a big bad one. When you ask the question "Mashkal??" you are simultaneously saying "You have a problem??" and "You wanna fight?" I never heard it used seriously though (I bet that when they reach that point in a discussion, the fight starts without consultation). We always use it among friends when having a bantering disagreement.

- To say "the bowl was lost" (Da3 el tass) means that suddenly chaos and panic broke. The bowl that is mentioned is the one that in the old days was used to rinse off the soap after washing oneself. To realize it's lost at the crucial moment where one is covered in soap, would cause the panic we can imagine. Another interesting tidbit about that bowl is that there's a bump in its center containing seeds so that when pouring the water on oneself, a rattling noise would occur. This was to scare the djinns away, because they were believed to be present in the water.

- "I will count God not create you", or "I will act as if God didn't create you" implies that one won't have to hold back from making one regret being born.

I said "Look, my head does not carry me, break the evil before the gypsy milk goes up huh! Go pave the sea if you want to whiten face now!" I frowned him a frown.
I said "Look, I can't keep my head cool for long, knock it off before I get mad. Get lost and you'll stay on good terms with me." I gave him one of those frowns...

- I would reword the translation of "Ksor el charr abel ma yetlaa haliib el nawar" as "Quit the attitude before the barabarian milk goes up". The implication is, "before I revert to the habits of my wild ancestors and act as such". Nawar, which was translated here as Gypsy, is actually a nomadic Arabian tribe that the Lebanese consider to be the summit of bad taste, filth and bad manners, along with the Tatars. To call someone "nawar" or "tatar" is a way to show disdain -- our equivalents to the Greek's "barbarian".

- "Go pave the sea" is one of my favourite expressions; it tells someone to get lost or leave you alone in quite a picturesque way.

- To "whiten face" is to work towards being on good terms with someone, or in someone's favor. For instance after being absent from class twice, I show up with lots of work done to "whiten face" with my teacher. It can end up with a meaning similar to licking boots though. By extension, we may sometimes qualify a compliment of "boya" (white paint) to imply it's a compliment meant to get on somebody's good side.

- In Arabic, turns of phrase of the "one of those" category ("I gave him one of those looks...", "She received one of those slaps!") are rendered by using the verb and its noun in a sentence of the type above ("Ja'arto ja'ra" in Lebanese). The repetition of the same word in two variations emphasizes the action. "I slapped her a slap", "I looked him a look", etc...

The man felt on his blood and left the room. After a minute he was gone gone. I'd have wrung his breadth and he'd have eaten a killing.
The man realized what a jerk he was being and left the room. If he had stayed a minute more, he would have been finished. I'd have beat the living daylights out of him.

- To say of somebody they're unbearable, we say their blood is heavy. So when the man here "felt his blood", he was realizing "how heavy it was".

- To say of something that it was destroyed/killed/wiped out, we say it's gone. This is the meaning in which it is used here, and the repetition is a common device for emphasis. It means something like "really REALLY gone".

- Laundry expressions seem to be favorite metaphors for beating someone or yelling at them. When we come out of a class where the teacher massacred us, we have the choice, to describe the scene, between "she wrung us out", "she wiped the floor with us", "she wiped us", "she pounded us clean"... I don't know why housechore-related terms came to be associated with such a vigorous treatment, but I want to note another expression in the same spirit, "She returned from the bakery". It is said of someone who's in a real bad mood, and refers to what state a woman would be in when returning home after working at the bakery all day long.

- "Breadth" seems to be a metonymic term to mean "you" indirectly.

- To eat a killing is to get a good beating. Generally speaking, we say "We ate it" to mean "we got it good" -- for instance when coming out of that class I just mentioned.

In the truth, he poisoned my body very much, but the girl gave breakfast to my nerves. She said "Don't carry worry, my life don't carry worry, put your hands in cold water". I told her "Like my foot, don't get a mind. People like him come out of my nose. Tell me, are you empty tonight?" She said "yes, I emptify myself for you". Elephants! I told her "Thank you my lover, you are very digestable".
In truth, he annoyed the heck out of me, but the girl calmed my nerves. She said "Don't let it bear on your mind sweetheart, calm down". I told her "I don't give a damn about him, don't worry. I can't stand people like that. Tell me, are you free tonight?" She said "Yes, I'll free myself up for you". What luck! I told her "Thank you dear, you're very cute".

- "Sammanle badane", he poisoned my body, is a clear expression of the annoyance felt throughout one's body when faced with certain people.

- In Arabic, the word for breakfast if iftar, and it means literally, fast-breaking. in Lebanese however we use another word, terwee'a, that comes from the same root as the verb "to calm". Its use in that sentence then is a pun more than a literal translation.

- "My life" is the term that is equivalent to "darling" in Arabic.

- "Put your hands in cold water" means "calm down".

- When we say "like my foot", or like something less mentionable, it means "I care about it as I care about my foot right now".

- Anything that is said to come out of our nose is something that we have enough of, we're so saturated with them they pour out.

- To be "empty" is the equivalent of being free. "I'm not empty for you" is used to say "I have better things to do than waste my time on you".

- "Elephants" is a cute expression I havent' heard since high school. It originates in the saying "To make elephants fly" (Tayyer fyooleh). When someone does that, it means they're telling tall tales. The last part of the expression, fyooleh, started being used on its own to mean a stroke of luck. For instance, when my brother shot a 3-points with his eyes closed and I asked how he did that, he was like: "Fyooleh! Pure luck!"

- "My lover" here is a literal translation of a term that has lost that meaning. "Habibe, habibte" means lover, but it is now used in the meaning of darling, although much more commonly. Men will use it among themselves for example (even if they're strangers) to express bonds of greatfulness.

- The coming together of "digestible" and "cute" here is likely a pun on the fact that they sound similar. If there is a further etymological link I am not aware of it. I have made a fool of myself before by saying "I'm digesting" and people hearing "I'm being cute"...