Glossary entry (derived from question below)
español term or phrase:
se le vendió un peine a un calvo
inglés translation:
selling a comb to a bald man / person // selling snow to an eskimo
español term
Estados Unidos
se le vendió un peine a un calvo
The line is written by the evaluator in the patient's report. It is 'Al absurdo, 'se le vendió un peine a un calvo', dijo el paciente 'no se, tal vez'.
Thank you
| 4 +8 | selling a comb to a bald man / person |
Charles Davis
|
Jun 18, 2019 08:33: Charles Davis changed "Edited KOG entry" from "<a href="/profile/1668740">Sinead Nicholas's</a> old entry - "se le vendió un peine a un calvo"" to ""selling a comb to a bald man / person""
Non-PRO (2): Carol Gullidge, Adolfo Fulco
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Proposed translations
selling a comb to a bald man / person
"Para poner de manifiesto la habilidad muy grande de una persona se dice a veces que es «capaz de hacer hablar a un mudo», o de «cortar un pelo en el aire», o de «contar los pelos al diablo», o de «vender un peine a un calvo», o de «sacar agua de una piedra», o de «sacar polvo de debajo del agua»."
https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/biblioteca_fraseologica/n1_c...
There are quite a lot of modern examples of the phrase in English, in the world of selling, where it refers to the ultimate achievement of a salesperson, but to show it's not new here's one from 1932. It refers to a native American:
"He is now a traveling salesman of great ability. His latest achievement is the
difficult task which is the ambition of all salesmen—selling a comb to a bald-headed pale-face. He will soon be selling fans to the Eskimos."
https://archive.org/details/clarion_yb_1932/page/n37
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Note added at 20 mins (2019-06-12 09:05:21 GMT)
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It reminds me of a traditional Spanish joke: "Algo es algo, dijo un calvo, al encontrarse con un peine".
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