Persian terms in your local tongue

1
Persian terms in your local tongue

I was speaking with some Persian friends of mine who where telling me how they had used some of their native terms translated into the local language, Norwegian. It sounded so funny. I asked them what it was about and we all had a laugh. Actually, the discussion was quite interesting.

Sinister - A 'left-left'
In astrology we have the expressions of a sinister and dexter, or left and right handed aspect. The 'sinister', or left as it were, meaning something that is unfortunate or unclean. The local term used in Persian is something like 'sinister-sinister', which is an expression used to say something slightly degrading about a person - that he might be evil. The only thing is that when my friends were using the term locally they were translating it into Norwegian. In English it is like talking to or addressing a person and describing him as 'left-left'. I will be sure to take care when driving in the traffic or giving directions in the future. It seems like the decription 'left and left again' could get me into trouble... :???:

420
420 is a term they use for a person who is tricky, sly, cannot be trusted or who is a little bit too clever for his own and the good of others. This is interesting because the term immediately appears to be derived from the concept of 360 degrees of a perfect circle, plus another 60. So the person is overshooting, out of his ride, performing a bluff and promising more than he could go good for. The 360-degree circle can, as we know, be divided into 6 segments of 60-degrees each, so 420 is 60 x 7. There is a similar term in English where if you ask how things are going the answer may be that it is all 6's and 7's! This is just like saying that things vary from perfection to matters that cannot be trusted at all. I used to think the British term was derived from the numbers on a dice where 6 was perfect and 7 was like a throw where the dice fell off the table. Maybe it relates to 420/360... :)
http://www.astronor.com

Re: Persian terms in your local tongue

2
Andrew Bevan wrote:Persian terms in your local tongue

I was speaking with some Persian friends of mine who where telling me how they had used some of their native terms translated into the local language, Norwegian. It sounded so funny. I asked them what it was about and we all had a laugh. Actually, the discussion was quite interesting.

Sinister - A 'left-left'
In astrology we have the expressions of a sinister and dexter, or left and right handed aspect. The 'sinister', or left as it were, meaning something that is unfortunate or unclean. The local term used in Persian is something like 'sinister-sinister', which is an expression used to say something slightly degrading about a person - that he might be evil. The only thing is that when my friends were using the term locally they were translating it into Norwegian. In English it is like talking to or addressing a person and describing him as 'left-left'. I will be sure to take care when driving in the traffic or giving directions in the future. It seems like the decription 'left and left again' could get me into trouble... :???:

420
420 is a term they use for a person who is tricky, sly, cannot be trusted or who is a little bit too clever for his own and the good of others. This is interesting because the term immediately appears to be derived from the concept of 360 degrees of a perfect circle, plus another 60. So the person is overshooting, out of his ride, performing a bluff and promising more than he could go good for. The 360-degree circle can, as we know, be divided into 6 segments of 60-degrees each, so 420 is 60 x 7. There is a similar term in English where if you ask how things are going the answer may be that it is all 6's and 7's! This is just like saying that things vary from perfection to matters that cannot be trusted at all. I used to think the British term was derived from the numbers on a dice where 6 was perfect and 7 was like a throw where the dice fell off the table. Maybe it relates to 420/360... :)
This derives from the Colonial British Penal code 420 of 1860 A.D
http://indiankanoon.org/docfragment/143 ... ode%201860

But in USA it is code for smoking pot and speaking to angels :)
make sure you don't end up divulging nuclear secrets
while you do the USA. :D