Toujours Tingo

Book excerpt: Why would Germans accuse you of being like the donkey getting cross with a rabbit? Who would a Spaniard tell to go and fry asparagus? And when might the French claim they are without a radish? Furthering your knowledge of the world’s unusual idioms, Toujours Tingo will also explain how ordering ‘lamb’ in Ethiopia may see a cow delivered to your table, and how politicians in Sweden may be encouraged occasionally to göra en hel Pudel (‘do a full poodle’) with some humble apologising. Covering such wide-ranging linguistic necessities as arguing, raising children, working and dining out, and filling all those gaps that English leaves thoughtlessly unplugged, this book’s charm would – for Russians at least – be ežiku ponjatno (obvious even to a hedgehog).