wear out shoe soles

[buketturk]

Hello,

Do you know an expression like "wear out shoe soles" in romanian?

How many pairs of soles the devil had wore out in order to succeed in bringing together Mme Joséphine and M. Demeter Bobesco, I could not say, but I can affirm that this couple without children formed the ideal household from a single point of view.

It translated in Romanian in this way (the original is in french, the book is from Panait Istrati):

Era o franţuzoaică sadea, venită de multă vreme în România. Câte perechi de pingele şi-o fi rupt dracul până să-i unească, nu pot să ştiu. Un lucru însă: doamna Josefina şi domnul Dumitru Bobescu erau opereche ideală. Deşi n-aveau copii, preţuiau banul până dincolo de orice închipuire, făcând dintrînsul talismanul vieţii. Dar un talisman care, odată intrat în casa de bani, nu mai putea ieşi în nici un chip. De-aici urmări, care de care mai năstruşnice.

Thanks...

 

[farscape]

It's a bit unusual these days but makes perfect sense in the context (Panait Istrati, Din Lumea Mediteranei / Apus de Soare, Ed. Hoffmann).
The meaning is something along the lines of "it must have taken a great deal of effort and complex circumstances" to bring those two people together.

 

[buketturk]

Thank you. I understood the meaning. But I couldn't find the exact expression or idiom if exists...

 

[farscape]

You're welcome


“a rupe/toci pingelele“ is something you’ll find as a figure of speach in colloquial Romanian accompanied by the qualifier merită/nu merită, meaning it’s worth or not worth the effort.

In that specific context is trying to highlight the very special/complex set of circumstances, which brought those people together to make a perfect match.

 

[buketturk]

Excuse-me but... How can I find this “a rupe/toci pingelele“ in a dictionary? What am I suppose to write, or how I am suppose to search it?

 

[farscape]

You can start by searching "toci pingele" or rupe pingele" and you'll find examples:
(literally walking a lot, lots of effort): toci pingele ; veţi toci ceva pingele până atunci
rupe pingele here

 

[buketturk]

I write "toci pingele", "rupe pingele" on the dictionary of WR (romanian-english) but it says nothing. :/

 

[farscape]

The collection of (Romanian-only) dictionaries I recommend, assuming a decent level of understanding Romanian is dexonline.ro.

 

[buketturk]

So, what I suppose to write there?

 

[farscape]

Not sure what you're after, I'm afraid: you have the expression in a published Romanian novel and I offered you several links/web pages to show similar usage. You seem/claim to understand its usage and meaning.

In Panait Istrati's novel we have a metaphor* built around a rather common but now dated expression "a rupe/toci pingele".
(*) Câte perechi de pingele şi-o fi rupt dracul până să-i unească (...)

Not all idioms and especially metaphors make it into a dictionary

 

[buketturk]

Ah, so it's not an idiom actually, right? So I can't find it in a dictionary... The reason I asked was because I wanted to add it as a footnote to my translation.

 

[buketturk]

@farscape Here is what I mean. In the book, I saw a proverbe:

Desigur, organizasem un serviciu de spionaj care-i stricase toate socotelile. Mai mulţi ştrengari, cari erau „băieţii” mei, şedeau în puncte strategice pe întreg drumul care ducea de la Cazino la hotel. Cum era zărit c-a ieşit, pe neaşteptate, de la joc, adică la o oră „nepotrivită”, eram înştiinţat, înainte de-a face zece paşi. Şi, la sosirea lui, nevastă-sa îl aştepta şi putea să jure, vorba proverbului, „că nici usturoi n-am mâncat şi nici gura nu-mi pute”.

When I search it on Google, it shows me this site: Ce înseamnă Nici usturoi n-a mâncat, nici gura nu-i miroase (popular şi familiar) ? Then, it shows me the meaning of it: "Se spune despre cineva care se preface că nu știe nimic despre o faptă la care a participat" which means "It is said of someone who pretends to know nothing about an act in which he participated." I guess.

I wanted to be able to do the same with the idiom above.

 

[Trisia]

It's just not that used (any more?), I guess.

Aside from various folk tales and stories (in which it was taken quite literally to mean a long road and hence the necessity to replace said soles) I'd never seen it anywhere before Farscape linked to those blogs.