Lost in Translation

My wife posted a bit on her blog about Mongolian idioms.  We had a great time with Boloroo last week and the conversation was a hoot.  Fact is, you don't know Mongolian at all until you can interpret the idiomatic expressions they use ALL THE TIME.  For my non language nerd readers, an idiom is a phrase that has an assigned meaning you can't get from what is actually said.  Like "they're gonna ship him up the river" means "They're gonna put him in prison."

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!

Bucket O' Guts

When I was a kid I remember my dad having a conversation with his boss, Bud Graves.  (aside: I credit Bud with the first rabbit I killed.  Funny story I might reminisce about later for my anti gun readers ;-)  Anyway, Bud was talking about some of the folk remedies people had when he was a kid. Oak bark tea was particularly unpleasant, but highly prescribed by Dr. Moms in Washington County before all the modern bottled medicine arrived.

On a similar vein, I recently spent a couple weeks with some guys in the north country of Mongolia, and for the second time enjoyed the medicinal delicacy I have named the "Bucket O' Guts."  Basically Dr. Moms here say each of the innards has a corresponding healthful benefit to our body (i.e. eating lung is good for the lungs, eating heart is good for the heart, etc).  Since I had contracted some kind of amoeba from bad milk product (i.e. had the squirts) I was advised to eat stomach and intestine to get better.

For the squeamish stop here . . . . 

I warned you . . . .

Stomach, tastes a bit like an inner tube soaked in fermented grass.  You really gotta work to get it down.  Intestine (both large and small) are filled with blood which coagulates when boiled, a bit like sausage if you really use your imagination.  If you like the taste when someone punches you in the mouth you would probably love it.  Being the good patient I sampled every organ (liver and kidney were particularly nice) then drank a cup o' gut juice.  Call me crazy, but that stuff was EXCELLENT.  A bit like hot broth on crack and steroids.

Effect?  Not sure if it was the Imodium or the Bucket O' Guts, but I didn't run to the crapper the rest of the day.

My writing not not good enough for you?  Okay sicko, here's your pic.