“It’s Raining Men” and “Let The Bodies Hit The Floor” are actually one song
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Reminds me of the Rice Krispies onomatopoeic noises in different languages:
English: Snap! Crackle! Pop!
Danish: Pif! Paf! Puf!
Swedish: Piff! Paff! Puff!
German: Knisper! Knasper! Knusper!
Spanish: Pim! Pam! Pum!
Finnish: Riks! Raks! Poks!
French: Cric! Crac! Croc!
Dutch: Pif! Paf! Pof!
Afrikaans: Knap! Knetter! Knak!
Belgium: Poos! Pas! Pes!
Interesting that English is the only language where this isn't alliterative.
I think the list is kind of intentionally misleading to provide that assumption.
The non-English ones are all translations of whatever that language uses as its onomatopoeia that represents any quick succession of sounds.
In English, Snap Crackle Pop is most known as the slogan of Rice Krispies cereal. The saying was not common speech in English until 1932, when the then-5-year-old brand used the phrase in radio jingles for the first time.
The universal English equivalent to any of those would probably be something more like “bang bang bang”. Or in British English they say “bish bash bosh” which would be a true direct translation. In American English we dropped that saying, so our closest equivalent would probably be “wham, bam, thank you ma’am”
While you are correct, I feel it's important to point out how lately you've been missing your 'outside enrichments'...
I love how sometimes language unites us and sometimes it makes us humorously question the sanity of anyone too different from us 😄
I had no idea that vowel progression (I A O/U) was so common in European languages. Interesting!
That Belgian version doesn't sound right. Never heard.or seen that one.
Slovaks use “wheelbarrows” not tractors
In France we have a few more:
Il pleut des cordes (It's raining ropes) Il pleut à sceau (It's raining buckets) Il tombe des hallebardes (it's raining halberds)
I'm also quite partial to "on s'est fait saucer", literally "we got sauced", which refers to getting soaked in the rain.
Do French people generally know what a Halberd is? Because I think at least in Canada only RPG nerds and medieval history nerds have ever heard that word before...
The French do know how to decapitate heads. Usually they use a guillotine, but I guess they also know a halbard for when the guillotine is out of order.
The halberd expression I've only personally heard once from my wife who is a walking French expression generator. There's a new one every other day. I generally hear the rope expression used a lot more.
According to this expression it's "frequent" but no idea what that means: https://www.lesexpressions.fr/expression/il-tombe-des-hallebardes
Au Québec on dit encore "Pleuvoir à siaux", bien que c'est le seul temps qu'on utilise encore cette vieille forme du mot sceaux. Par contre, jamais entendu l'expression des vaches ou des hallebardes
Norwegian here. Never heard the troll one before. Might be from a different part of the country. We have a lot of other sayings about rain though.
Det regner trollkjerringer
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kuin_Esterin_perseest%C3%A4
One urban legend has it that Esteri was the goddess of rain in pre-Christian Finland, but in fact the name is of Biblical origin. Another folk etymology suggests the phrase derives from Esteri, a brand of water pumps used by fire brigades.
Brazil: Canivetes (pocket knives)
Is there something about troll squirting that only the Norwegians know about?
Pipe sticks (The Netherlands) (het regent pijpenstelen)
Other option: tuberculosis hard. (het regent tering hard)
More like pipe stems, no? As in the stems of pipes for smoking tobacco.
Also used: it's dog weather (het is hondenweer)
I was thinking about broomstick stelen. But yeah, 'stem' makes sense.
Hondenweer technically is about the weather in general, not rain specifically. A snow blizzard or a storm can also be hondenweer.
Pijp is (ook) een oud woord voor buis.Een regenpijp is een afvoerbuis van een dakgoot bijvoorbeeld. Een orgel heeft pijpen, een mergelpijp (of mergpijp) is een stuk bot gevuld met beenmerg.
In lokaal dialect is een rietje ook een "peppeke" (pijpje).
Pours as if from a broomhandle
Estonian. No, it doesn't make sense here either.
We say it's raining pipe ends.
Swedish:
It's raining so much...
What did the Slovakians say before tractors were invented?
Luckily, tractors and the first instance of rain arrived in Slovakia on the very same day.
Very arid country with exhausted draft horses until that day.
as @username@leminal.space said, slovaks use “wheelbarrows” not tractors
Fun fact: when it's raining, but the sun is shining, we say the Devil is beating his wife. Southeast USA, btw. I can see how some of these sayings came to be, but this one has never, ever made sense to me.
In France, I believe they say that he's beating his wife and marrying his daughter. Very interesting.
Just adding one more, in spanish it's raining from jugs ("cántaro", more like an amphora, never used this old word outside of this expression)
I personally don't use this expression anymore. My family and I now only say something my brother came up with because we find it hilarious: it's a rain so hard it's like two rains
"It's raining tractors" sounds like a way better song than that one about tacos.
Who tf is Esteri and why does she have such notoriously bad diarrhea?
In French we usually say it's raining ropes, the listed expression exists but is vulgar so we use it a lot less.
Serbian: It's pouring like from a hose/cable
(we say "cable", but since the word is from a pre electricity age, hose is the actual meaning of)
(not very creative, I know, but keep in mind, hoses were for fancy rich people here at some point)
What's the pre-translated Norwegian?
Matching some of these older alternatives in the UK are "Bucketing Down", "Stair Rods". Which line up with some of the other languages(ISH).
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