You're listening to Away With Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I'm Grant Barrett. And I'm Martha Barnett. As I have for the last couple of years, I taught a workshop

at the San Miguel Writers Conference and Literary Festival in San Miguel de Iyende, Mexico, and I was reminded of a couple of food related

idioms in Spanish that I think you'll appreciate. In English, if you're really scared about something,

you might describe yourself as shaking like a leaf, right?

But in Spanish, the phrase is,

Templar,, a flan.

To shake like a flan, like the dessert?

Yeah, to tremble like a flan, which you can just picture it

right when somebody sets down the plate on your table

and it's just. Yeah yeah it's because it's

kind of like a firm jello firmer than jello right it's not quite as wiggly yeah I

love that image and I also love darlélauelta ala tortilla, which literally means to flip the tortilla.

And you would use that in the context of say you're watching your favorite soccer team, and they're just losing and losing but all of a sudden

something happens and they end up winning the game. You say they've they flipped the

tortilla. Oh and we would say flipped to the script maybe in English,

or to turn the tide.

Yeah, yeah, you turn the tide,

but I like that they're both food related.

Outstanding.

Well, we know that a lot of you speak other languages at home. I know you've got idioms and things that just don't quite translate into English as clearly as they are in the original language. Let us know 877929963. Our email Words at wayward radio

or spill it all on Twitter at W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.

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