a zampe in avanti
English translation: over his own dead body
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| 12:23 Dec 9, 2007 |
| Italian to English translations [PRO] Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature | |||||||
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|  Selected response from: Paul O'Brien Argentina Local time: 22:08 | ||||||
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| Summary of answers provided | ||||
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| 4 +6 | over his own dead body |
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| 4 +1 | feet first |
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| 4 | paws foremost |
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| 3 | once he'd popped his clogs / after biting the dust / going belly up |
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| Discussion entries: 2 | |
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Answers
5 mins confidence: 
paws foremost Explanation: o 'paws-first'... This actually means "dead" and is mostly used with 'feet', not 'paws' but I think the author's idea about paws should be preserved |
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6 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +1
peer agreement (net): +1feet first Explanation: dead... |
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43 mins confidence:
once he'd popped his clogs / after biting the dust / going belly up Explanation: "popping one's clogs" recalls the image of feet... to go "belly up" evokes the image of dead fish floating in water, though it is commonly used when talking about businesses going bust. Still, you might want to use it to give your sentence a similar flavour to the original. |
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12 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +6
peer agreement (net): +6over his own dead body Explanation: abbiamo un detto in inglese secondo il quale qualcuno sarà in grado di fare qualcosa solo previo la tua morte ("over my dead body!"). il mio suggerimento per la traduzione dell'espressione non è fedelissimo all'originale, ma a) dice una cosa che si direbbe in inglese a b) mantiene l'ironnia della frase data. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2007-12-09 13:42:12 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- english language joke which also plays on the death motif: "it's a good job your father isn't alive, cos if he knew what you were up to it would kill him". |
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