Buscarle tres pies/patas al gato.

[duvija]

I agree that the best is 'nitpicking'. It's the closest one in register too.

 

[gengo]

I should not have written 'agreed' without looking at the whole thread. In #13 Nenita spoke of 'beating a dead horse' to which ptak30 said in #16 'The English expression is "flogging a dead horse".' I took this as a correction of the English expression,

In AmEn, it is "beating," so it might be better to say that the British expression is with flogging, since we use English, too.

 

[Digital Linguist]

Most of those expressions are quite familar to me also. But I have noticed that my 20-something children don't seem to understand some expressions that I think are perfectly common and obvious, so there may be some generational aspect here. Certainly something like "cows coming home" or "dog in the manger" seem like perfectly ordinary and easy to understand expressions to me. I should check to see if my daughter understands them.

I don't know much about generational gaps in knowledge of idiomatic expressions (especially in the Spanish language), but I did run portions of these phrases through Google's Ngram and found the results rather interesting. Google's Ngram only allows you to search for phrases of four words or less, but assuming there are few phrases that begin with "buscarle la quinta pata" or "buscarle tres pies" it gives you something to go on and might explain why one version may be more familiar to some than to others. If anyone knows why "buscarle la quinta pata" seems to have emerged in the 1960s, I'd love to hear your theories. The link to the Google Ngram search I did is here. A similar search I conducted is here. As you can see, the results for both sets of phrases is roughly the same.

 

[sound shift]

I might say "You're looking for hens' teeth", "There's no point in looking for hens' teeth".

 

[Quixot]

La frase “buscarle los tres pies al gato” viene del Quijote. Significa afrontar algo muy difícil o casi imposible. Efectivamente, los comentarios son correctos: los gatos no tienen pies sino patas, y si tienen cuatro patas, encontrarle tres no debe ser muy difícil…. Por eso en Latinoamérica cambiaron el número y dicen “buscarle cinco pies al gato”. Pero el “original” del Quijote dice tres, no cinco. ¿Enigma?

Esto es debido que el Quijote es una traducción del catalán al castellano (lamento que esto puede parecer un anatema, pero las pruebas son muy numerosas: está lleno de catalanismos y estructura de frases que en castellano no tienen sentido, el manuscrito original “ha desaparecido” pero conservamos la cama, los cubiertos, el pupitre y la pluma del supuesto escritor, fue editado en Barcelona en 1595 en la imprenta Casa Cormellas de la calle del Call número 12 y posteriormente traducido al castellano y editado en Lisboa el 1605 (y Madrid, aunque es difícil pensar que se hicieran dos ediciones en el mismo año con pocas semanas de diferencia… la única edición que consta en los prólogos de ediciones posteriores es la de Lisboa).

La frase original en catalán es “esto es tan difícil como buscarle los tres pelos (pelajes) al gato” (macho), “els tres pèls” que fue traducido por “los tres pies”: los gatos machos, genéticamente, no pueden tener más que dos tipos de color de pelo. Sólo uno o dos.



The sentence “finding the three legs to the cat” comes from Quixote and means to face a very difficult situation. It is a bad translation from Catalan into Spanish (yes, Quixote was originally written in Catalan): they translated “els tres pèls” by “the three legs”, when it really was “the three hairs” of the (male) cat. Male cats cannot have three different hair colors genetically: only one or two.

 

[Manuel Rosendo]

I have registered just to answer you.
D. Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra, was Castilian and spoke and wrote in Spanish (the one of the time), there was an “anonymous” who wrote a second part that was published in Catalonia. But Cervantes did not speak Catalan. Catalan has many Castilian roots, just like my Galician mother.

As for the "pies del gato" the original saying said "cinco", but the teacher changed it to "tres, and "God knows why".

The refrain refers to looking for illogical things like counting the cat's tail as one-fifth.

For my part, I love to look for three feet to the cat, I do not understand why, I always find more than I am looking for, I always get at least four.

 

[Galván]

Hello. The best translation for this spanish modism "Buscarle tres pies al gato " would be "To split hairs"

En realidad no es lo mismo puesto que buscarle las 3 o 5 patas al gato es buscar lo que no existe, en cambio hacer algo que te haga romper la cabeza (split hairs) solo señala algo difícil de hacer pero no imposible.

 

[Agró]

En realidad no es lo mismo puesto que buscarle las 3 o 5 patas al gato es buscar lo que no existe, en cambio hacer algo que te haga romper la cabeza (split hairs) solo señala algo difícil de hacer pero no imposible.

split hairs v expr	figurative (focus on trivial things)	buscarle el pelo al huevo loc verb
		buscarle la quinta pata al gato loc verb

¿Qué tiene que ver "split hairs" con "romper la cabeza"?

 

[Galván]

split hairs v expr	figurative (focus on trivial things)	buscarle el pelo al huevo loc verb
		buscarle la quinta pata al gato loc verb

¿Qué tiene que ver "split hairs" con "romper la cabeza"?

Merriam Webster Dictionary says splitting hairs is to make often peevish criticisms or objections about matters that are minor, unimportant, or irrelevant.

Google says splitting hairs means to make small and unnecessary distinctions

Word Reference says splitting hair is to focus on trivial things, and I agree.

Buscarle las 3 (5) patas al gato es buscar soluciones o razones faltas de fundamento o que no tienen sentido.

Ejemplo de splitting hair: “When you are accused of being forty-five minutes late for an appointment, you are splitting hairs to say that you were really only forty minutes late.”

Ejemplo de buscarle 3 patas al gato: el clásico ejemplo de Don Quijote que buscaba giantes donde no los había y el comisario le responde: Váyase vuestra merced, señor, norabuena, su camino adelante, y enderécese ese bacín que trae en la cabeza, y no ande buscando tres pies al gato.

No me parece lo mismo. Puedo estar equivocado.

 

[gengo]

No me parece lo mismo. Puedo estar equivocado.

I agree with how you have explained "to split hairs," and also that it is not the same as "buscarle las 3/5 patas al gato," but Agró was asking about how that is related to "romper la cabeza," which I think has a different meaning.

 

[Galván]

I agree with how you have explained "to split hairs," and also that it is not the same as "buscarle las 3/5 patas al gato," but Agró was asking about how that is related to "romper la cabeza," which I think has a different meaning.

La expresión “romperse la cabeza” significa precisamente esto: pensar intensamente para encontrar la solución a una pregunta, una dificultad, una adivinanza, un problema, reflexionar de manera muy intensa.

 

[gengo]

La expresión “romperse la cabeza” significa precisamente esto: pensar intensamente para encontrar la solución a una pregunta, una dificultad, una adivinanza, un problema, reflexionar de manera muy intensa.

But that is not how we use "to split hairs." We never use it to refer to solving a problem, or anything at all positive. It simply means to be overly concerned with precision, to the point of absurdity. It is always used negatively.

 

[Galván]

But that is not how we use "to split hairs." We never use it to refer to solving a problem, or anything at all positive. It simply means to be overly concerned with precision, to the point of absurdity. It is always used negatively.

Okay, thank you for the correction.

 

[Silvia Dee]

In Chile the original sentence in spanish has no sense. In Chile we say "buscarle la quinta pata al gato", where "pata" is the generic name for the extremities.
In this context, the sentence has no meaning, because any cat has "cuatro patas".

Anyway, I agree with the previous posts, you are looking for problems where there is no one.

I’m Spain, the original say when referring to somebody trying to convince you of something that´s not true, manipulating and lying is “no le busques cinco pies al gato”
but “pies” back then when talking about poetry and words meant “syllables“ and Cervantes was the first to use “no le busques los tres pies al gato” because obviously “gato” has two syllables/pies

 

[Foraneo]

I’m Spain, the original say when referring to somebody trying to convince you of something that´s not true, manipulating and lying is “no le busques cinco pies al gato”
but “pies” back then when talking about poetry and words meant “syllables“ and Cervantes was the first to use “no le busques los tres pies al gato” because obviously “gato” has two syllables/pies

Well... It seems to be a continental issue then. Because here in Argentina I just have heard as in Chile "buscarle la quinta pata al gato".
I never heard "pies" used with the sense of syllables. Nor does it refer to Cervantes.