I first learned this during the savings and loan scandal a few years ago. A woman we had recently met had a son who had been implicated in embezzling $70,000 and was to stand trial. Months later I met a friend of the woman and asked what had happened to the son. "He's pulling fathers door" was the reply. After pondering it a bit I decided it meant the young man had fled to the country side and was in hiding among his father's family. When I brought my observation to a language teacher, she exploded into laughter. "Your such a stupid student!" she said. (And yes, even the nice Mongolian teachers will call their students stupid.) Then she explained that pulling fathers door meant to ship him up the river. Then I learned Mongols traditionally communicated with idioms and symbolic speech.
Without further explanation, here are a few more I have learned. See if you can guess the meaning before scrolling to the translation below.
1. I'm going to see a horse.
2. It was like seeing a rabbit with horns.
3. I loaned him a dollar and sent out a river.
4. That woman's body has two floors.
5. Don't eat rice during your exam.
- No cheating -
1. Easy one. I'm going to the bathroom. When said among friends you can later tell them if it was big or little horse, yellow or brown one, etc.
2. It was TOTALLY AWESOME. Imagine the expression on her face when I googled a jack-a-lope and showed it to a woman. She just about wet her pants.
3. I will never get it back. We would say, "That's the last I'll hear from him."
4. Are you thinking "Her elevator doesn't reach the top floor"? WRONG! (I laugh hysterically at my stupid students ;-). The woman is PREGNANT!
5. Um . . don't chew gum? Nope. Made it too easy didn't I. Don't cheat.
It isn't always that bad. Some idioms are the same, like being "red faced" means either "embarrassed" or "angry." Mongols also use sayings that parallel with ours. For instance, "killing two birds with one stone" in Mongolian is "killing two rabbits with one arrow." But it is still amazing what really happened in our brains at the tower of babel. Really. It's no wonder so many dictionary writers lose their marbles!