GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW) | ||||||
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15:03 Jul 19, 2019 |
Spanish to English translations [PRO] Slang / Guatemalan Spanish | |||||||
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| Selected response from: Marie Wilson Spain Local time: 14:18 | ||||||
Grading comment
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Summary of answers provided | ||||
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3 +3 | If you act like a doormat, people will walk all over you |
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3 +2 | if you bend over too far, you'll get kicked in the butt |
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if you bend over too far, you'll get kicked in the butt Explanation: Or perhaps, a bit longer, you're asking to be kicked in the butt or you're asking for a kick in the butt. OK, it's not exactly a proverb or saying, but it enables you to use a similar metaphor to the original, in a variant that seems to me to fit the situation: getting kicked in the butt is, after all, what people who kowtow (bend over) to Trump get for their pains. It's crude, but not too crude: not as crude as the Spanish expression, I'd say. In particular, if you'd rather not use the doormat metaphor in both halves of the sentence this is a way of avoiding it. I don't think it matters if you do, but perhaps it takes a little of the vigour out of hte sentence. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 4 hrs (2019-07-19 19:33:30 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- If you wanted to tone it down, you could use "backside" or "behind" instead of "butt". In British English we'd say "kicked/a kick up the backside"; I'm not sure whether Americans would say that. |
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1 hr confidence: peer agreement (net): +3
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