Today’s Japanese phrase is “neko no hitai”. It means “a cat’s forehead” and is used to describe small or narrow spaces. The example in my Japanese lesson today was “uchi no niwa wa neko no hitai desu”: “My house’s garden is a cat’s forehead”.
My Japanese teacher asked me if we had a similar expression in English. The best I could come up with was “the size of a postage stamp”. Of course, this idiom, translated into Japanese, was as humourous to her as “a cat’s forehead” is to me.
Posted by pmk at July 11, 2006 3:42 AMWe do have the expression (at least in the UK) “Not big enough to swing a cat in” which also means very small and continues the feline theme.
German has “Katzensprung” which means a very short distance, for example, “the train station is only a katzensprung from my house”
Posted by: Jeff B at July 11, 2006 9:09 AMMore feline stuff:
“Katzenjammer”, to whine like a cat (hangover)
“Katzenwäsche” (a lick and a promise)
oh, and “Katzengold” Cat’s gold (fool’s gold).
There are probably dozens of cat-related sayings in german =)
Posted by: p at July 15, 2006 5:08 AM