Showing posts with label Idioms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Idioms. Show all posts

Friday, 22 April 2011

"Pink glasses"



A widespread phrase "pink glasses" has become current a long time ago not only for psychologists and literary critics, but also in everyday life. But sometimes, using the phrase “to look through pink glasses” in speech, not everyone understands its value. Yes, it is very good to have pink glasses in a combination to other accessories of female clothes. But in this case it is a problem of a phraseological unit that has certain lexical value.

So, how do dictionaries define the given combination of words? For example, we find in Ushakov's dictionary: "pink glasses" — the phraseological unit meaning illusory, naive perception of an objective reality, as a rule, imposed any ideology.
Probably this idiom has come to us from English language? In English it sounds like “to look at smth through rose-colored glasses”, maybe, our “to look at something through pink glasses” is taken from a foreign language?

Pink dreams - to look at everything through pink glasses or to see all in pink color or light (to idealize everything not to notice lacks).
Expression «he wears pink glasses» is usually applied to the person when it is meant that the mentioned person doesn't wish to notice negative factors in the actions, the surrounding validity and etc.

In the Cambridge dictionary of idioms we find “rose-colored glasses” or “rose-tinted glasses” and it is described in the following way: ”If someone thinks about something or looks at something through pink glasses, he considers it as more pleasant, than it actually is“. This expression is characteristic for the British, Australian and American variants of English language.

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) mentioned it in “worldly wisdom Aphorisms”: ”… those who see everything in black color and is ready to the worst, are mistaken less often in the calculations, than people who look at life through pink glasses“.
In Russian literature - one of the first mentions of this expression – we find in Vitaly Bianki's fairy tales about animals. In a fairy tale the hare who has found pink glasses and for some time perceived world in very optimistic light. It continued till he met a wolf.
If to address to psychology of color and the characteristic of pink color the use of the given phrase as idealized representation of the validity becomes clear.

Pink color is the color of romanticism and optimism. It can seem that it is preferred by people who are not too responsible, who can shift the duties on shoulders of others … Pink color is a mix of red and white. There is a force, stability, and ease, winged sentiments in it. Courage, and tenderness, love - not with the concrete person but with life. Pink not only provokes affability, but also lowers malignancy and aggression. Pink color is passive, it calms and softens emotions.
Color therapy recommends pink to people who can hardly calm down. Whatever heavy your day is, when you see pink color, you won't manage to keep aggression.

Pink is the most passive of all colors, it provokes affability and reduces aggression, both internal, and external.
And there are "the pink glasses", allowing to see the world with a happy children's infantile sight.
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Thursday, 21 April 2011

Break a Leg!


Two young track-and-field athletes, Jim and Frank, are having a talk before the run of Jim’s: “You know, I wish you all the best today, Jim! Break a leg!” “Thank you, Frank! I’ll do my best.”

This conversation seems rather confusing, doesn’t it? But it’s not what some of you might think it is. Frank’s Break a leg! is far from being a wicked remark made out of envy of Jim’s possible success, as well as his skills. What’s more, Frank IS frank enough in wishing all the best to his friend. It sounds queer, yet Break a leg! is not said to mock the athlete, but to REALLY support him and wish him good luck.

It’s interesting to know that the phrase has a theatrical origin. I don’t mean to say it is originally used as an intent to get people’s attention. I mean it is related to theater performances. Why, the theatre is notoriously superstitious. Therefore it is believed that wishing “good luck” to your colleagues is deemed bad luck, a taboo to say. So “break a leg” used to be actually utteredd as an euphemism and is still employed to wish good luck to somebody, especially before some important event or performance, in precise.

I simply adore English for being such an ironic language at times, especially in the variety of puzzling idioms and catchphrases it has. It is always much fun to translate such phrases into Russian.

Imagine a situation in which an interpreter translates some idioms wrong. It can be either funny or causing some trouble. To avoid mistakes we should be aware of the existence of such false friends of interpreters and translators, and never be too selfassure to ignore checking words up in a dictionary or two.

Another funny example I like is a phrase “to have nothing upstairs”. Not quite sure if it is commonly used by English speakers, yet I saw it yesterday in my Idioms Dictionary and fell in love at first sight. Let’s see if you understand the meaning of it within the following context I’ve just made up:

“Did you hear Mary yesterday at the conference? She’s got a brain of a pigeon! She seems to have nothing upstairs!”

So, as you can see, English idioms are very funny and challenging indeed for a non-English-speaker to understand. I will be posting sometimes about my favorite ones to share my enthusiasm about them with you.

And you? Are there any funny idiomatic phrases YOU can recall of? Have you ever come across a problem of translating idioms? Do you think they may cause misunderstanding in comunication?

Please, share! .)

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