Coals to Newcastle in other languages

[gasterea]

Hi everybody, this is just for a bit of linguaphile fun. So, as wiki tells us (carrying) Coals to Newcastle is about

Comments

[pikku_gen]

In Finnish: viedä hiekkaa Saharaan to take sand to Sahara. There is another, but I can't remember it at the moment.

[gasterea]

Kiitos! This is so cute. Especially as Sahara is not exactly close to Finland so it's a slightly different pattern - exo instead of endo.

O/T

[verrucaria]

I love your icon!

Re: O/T

[gasterea]

gratias tibi ago maximas

[aletheiafelinea]

Polish: nosić drewno do lasu (to carry wood to a forest)

[gasterea]

Dziękuję bardzo.

[akibare]

Japanese has 「釈迦に説法」（しゃかにせっぽう、shaka ni seppou) which is "to give a lecture on Buddhism to Buddha" but it's not the physical item sense. Still, I suppose it IS giving someone something they really really don't need!

For English I first thought of "sell ice to the Eskimos" but when I looked it up, the "sell" bit apparently means it gets used far more often as an example of a very difficult marketing task, so that's not quite there.

[muckefuck]

Yeah, it's generally used in a positive sense, e.g. "She could sell ice to an Eskimo!"

[gasterea]

arigato :-) although the Buddha thing does seem to have a slightly different meaning - like teaching one's grandmother to suck eggs.

[reve119]

Spanish: llevar leña al monte

It was on a list of expressions using "llevar" that I'd gotten in my Spanish lesson a month or so ago, and I asked my teacher what it meant because I didn't know what it means in English, and she said it's rarely used.

[gasterea]

Muchas gracias.

Yiddish

[muckefuck]

firn shtroy keyn Mitsraim "carry straw to Egypt"

Re: Yiddish

[gasterea]

Now that's an interesting one. Never realized that Egypt could boast vast quantities of straw. Or am I missing some biblical reference here?

bricks without straw Bible search

[good_the_third]

[Moses and Joshua ask Pharoah to free the Hebrew people, but he refuses] Exodus 5: verses 6-9. "That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people: 'You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don’t reduce the quota. They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ Make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.'”

Re: bricks without straw Bible search

[gasterea]

Many thanks. It does look like the origin of this idiom.