Wednesday 13 May 2009

Food for thought

It’s interesting how the Portuguese expression "o que não mata engorda" (something like “what doesn’t kill you, grows you fatter”) doesn’t exist in Spanish, or in English. There is another one, quite close to it: “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger” (or “lo qué no te mata te hace más fuerte”). But it's not exactly the same, is it?

Today, when a piece of food fell on the ground, my comment that “nosotros, Portugueses, dicemos que lo que no te mata te hace más gordo” made the Costa Rican by my side laugh. For quite some time, actually. “Not stronger: fatter...” he kept saying to himself.

Was it our - so Portuguese! - pessimism that made us give that negative spin to this idiomatic expression?

Well, here is some food for thought. That can only make you stronger, or fatter, depending on the perspective.

1 comment:

  1. The expression doesn't exist in Costa Rican Spanish, but it does in Columbian Spanish apparently...

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