Summer is here!
Summer is in full swing here in the UK. Now’s the time to crack open the cool beverages and unfurl the picnic blankets from the bottom of the drawer. We can spend some quality time outdoors – at the riverside, in the park or at the beach. But with temperatures rising, but we might be sweating buckets!
Or, as the Dutch put it, sweating carrots (peentjes zweten). As one of our Dutch translators tells us, there are three different explanations for this unusual expression. According to the first one, the shape of sweat droplets reminds some people of the shape of carrots. Others think it comes from the fact that people who sweat a lot tend to have a reddish skin colour, so in effect they resemble this particular root vegetable. Last but not least, some say that peentjes (carrots) was originally pintjes, which means pints. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
Where does the otter come into play?
It’s a very fair question. In Dutch, there is another way to express you’re feeling the heat that’s much more endearing: zweten als een otter. Yes, you guessed it right, otter refers to the charismatic yet carnivorous otter in English.
Dutch is not the only language that compares the amount of sweating or the looks of the perspiring person to an animal. In Hungarian, you say izzadok, mint egy ló. This expression often heard in the scorching summer months of Hungary literally means I am sweating like a horse. Germans compare their perspiration to that of a monkey: Ich schwitze wie ein Affe. In French, one might say suer comme un bœuf (to sweat like an ox). There is, however, a much more common expression in French and that’s Je sue comme un cochon. It means the same as the Finnish hikoilen kuin pieni sika, the Bulgarian потя се като прасе, and the Russian я потею как свинья. These sentences all translate to I am sweating like a pig. In Italian, meanwhile, there is a phrase sudare sette camicie (to sweat seven shirts) – this one has nothing to do with heat, however. If you’re sweating through seven garments in Italy, you’re actually working extremely hard or busting a gut.
Don't sweat about translation
Translating ever since 1981, First Edition is a certified translation agency located in the leafy town of Cambridge. Our professionally qualified linguists cover a long list of languages and specialist subjects. Over the years, we’ve worked on novels, cookbooks, biographies, clinical trials, product packaging, marketing brochures, court paperwork, identity documentation, contracts and research papers.
We collaborate with a range of medical communication agencies, publishers, pharmaceutical manufacturers and cultural institutions from Glasgow to Gujarat. Simply email our multilingual project managers at enquiries@firstedit.co.uk to find out more – we’re always happy to answer your questions. If you work with us, we take care of every stage of the process, with quality assurance checks included as standard, meaning you don’t need to sweat about a thing.