Comical foreign phrases

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In Spanish: "manana de nunca"
English translation: Tomorrow of never

Swedish: "Goddag yxskaft."

English: "good day axe-handle."

It refers to a nonsensical response that you get from someone who isn't listening but is expected to respond. The original story has a deaf old man carving an axe-handle out of a piece of wood when a stranger comes by. Expecting the stranger to ask what he's making, and then ask for direction to town, the old man prepares to say "axe-handle" and "to the left" (direction of town). But the stranger is a polite man, so the first thing he says is "good day!" and recieves the response "axe handle.". There's a minor punchline to the story with the "to the left" line, but it doesn't translate well.

Oh..

Kinda like the absolute WORST thing that you can say to a Chinese:

"you...you...TURTLE EGG...you!"



In Chinese culture turtles are thought of as promiscuous animals (I suppose kinda like dogs or rabbits are thought of in the West). So you're really calling the person a "bastard". But to us Westerners it just sounds laughable.

Haha, did not know that.

Reminds me of the whole middle eastern thing with shoes. Shoes are considered exceedingly unclean, so being hit with one is extremely insulting. But if you don't really have that background (I mean, shoes are dirty, sure, but it's not like they're covered in feces or something) they guy who got up and threw his shoes at GW Bush just looks kind of weird and silly.