If someone could translate this to czech, or the closest equivalent, I'd greatly appreciate it. "I'm knee deep in S*** right now... I'm going to have to get back to you!"
That's great Milton. I'd love to say that to my step-daughter who calls me everyday at work. I know the equivalent to sh** is hovno. :lol:
Wow, I typed out the real czech word and it put those *** in there for me. Hmmm, I guess you can't type that on this site.
It isn't so hopeless, not po krk but only po kolena. :wink: jsem po kolena v... = I'm knee deep in... jsem po krk v... = I'm up to my neck in...
I know what's knee , but in this case i know it with "po krk" and may be better "vězel až po krk ve ..." less vulgar "vězel v tom až po krk", "vězel v tom až po uši" (up to his ears)
Stojí to se mnou za starou belu. Budu se k tobě asi muset vrátit. Please correct me 8), if you don't agree.
And what's the problem? :twisted: Sometimes, the literal translation is appropriate, sometimes it's even the only possibility :wink:. But if you want a nonliteral one, see the last Karel's translation. It fits the meaning perfectly. (But to be honest, as for the expressiveness, the "za starou belu"-idiom is tolerable even for an old puritan lady :wink:.) Natch, you're supposed to know it! :twisted: But I was not sure of milton's knowledge of krk or kolena. In fact, for milton's particular purpose it works with almost all parts of body (po pás, po prsa...). It's funny it doesn't work with love, for example. Zamilován až po uši (~ heads over heels in love) works fine, zamilován až po kolena is weird and zamilován až po krk markedly reminds similar mít lásky až po krk (~ be sick to death of love).
Literally: Stojí to se mnou za starou belu. = It costs (it is worth) an old bela with me. Stará (= old) bela is an idiom for nothing or something worthless. As for the word bela, the meaning is unclear. According to this article it means squirrel in old Russian, i.e. stojí to za starou belu = it costs an old (~ rotten) squirrel fur.
Stojí to za starou belu. Literally: It is worth an old squirrel skin. All things are worth an old squirrel skin. (i.e. All goes wrong.) Reportedly the furskin of the "bela" (= white squirrel) was an old mean of payment used by the Russians.
"Head over heels" doesn't have anything to do to do with the body part to which the "love" had reached. It is actually a corruption of a saying "heels over head" in love - meaning one is flipped over by love (fallen in love with someone). However, if talking about how "deeply" one is in love, the Brits used to have a saying "head over ears" which was another corruption of "over head and over ears" in love - and you will admit that is as deeply in love as one can fall
Another meaning of "bela" in czech is a combination of two cards (queen and king = král a svršek) in the czech play "mariáš". In the "Stojí to se mnou za starou belu. Budu se k tobě asi muset vrátit." you may replace the "stará bela" with "za starou bačkoru" or "za hovno", if you want. or "Je to se mnou nahnutý." (that would mean you have probably problems with police) "Jsem na tom bledě" etc.
