You're listening to a way with words, you show about language and how we use it.

I'm Grant Barrett.

And I'm Martha Barnett. In English, if you're at a loss or you stop making progress and you're

otherwise stymied, you might say you're spinning your wheels or something like that but in French

one way to say that translates as you've peddled into the sourcroughts

Petaled into the sourcroughts Yeah Yeah isn't that gorgeous? I mean can you

imagine peddling your bicycle into a whole bunch of sour crowd? I think that's so

much more evocative. Definitely in the weeds there. Yeah I got this from a beautiful little book that just came out called the

Illustrated Book of Sayings.

It's by Ella Francis Sanders.

And there are wonderful phrases in this book from all parts of the world. I won't try the

original language but in Turkish there's a proverb that translates as

grapes darkened by looking at each other.

Oh, can you imagine what that means?

Grapes darkened.

I don't know.

It's like we resemble the company that we keep.

Oh, of course.

You know, that notion that you're the average of the five people you spend most of your time with.

Oh, interesting.

Grapes darken by looking at each other.

And there's a Latvian phrase that translates as blow little ducks and that means they're not telling the truth.

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