My wife is Persian and English can be a very strange language when things are translated literally.There are so many strange examples that we speakers of English as our native language give no thought to.
Example:
My dear wife (DW) runs the ESL (English Secondary Language) deparment at the local Community College. One of her co-workers is from Japan and since I lived in Japan for a number of years I got involved in planning a birthday party at our house. The Japanese teacher is a very well educated and cat loving person. Anyway, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant party idea (he was hitting the big five oh). So as our meeting was drawing to a close and the notes gathered up, I announced "OK, nobody let the cat out of the bag on this!!"" Things became quiet. The Japanese women looked at me like I was from outer space. It was then I noted a dialog that went something like this:
Why would anybody leave a cat in a bag?
Why would we do something so mean?
Of course I would let a poor kitty out of a bag!
And on and on it went. I went from being a good guy to a mean old man. It just so happened that it was raining cats and dogs at the time. I thought it would be best not to even mention anything about the weather...
Example:
My dear wife (DW) runs the ESL (English Secondary Language) deparment at the local Community College. One of her co-workers is from Japan and since I lived in Japan for a number of years I got involved in planning a birthday party at our house. The Japanese teacher is a very well educated and cat loving person. Anyway, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant party idea (he was hitting the big five oh). So as our meeting was drawing to a close and the notes gathered up, I announced "OK, nobody let the cat out of the bag on this!!"" Things became quiet. The Japanese women looked at me like I was from outer space. It was then I noted a dialog that went something like this:
Why would anybody leave a cat in a bag?
Why would we do something so mean?
Of course I would let a poor kitty out of a bag!
And on and on it went. I went from being a good guy to a mean old man. It just so happened that it was raining cats and dogs at the time. I thought it would be best not to even mention anything about the weather...