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> Are there any who spear at the ground and miss? Used to describe something that is easily accomplished. |
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> Like a person somewhere taking a bath, but I'm cold. Applies to any embarrassing act, such as boasting or gossiping, on the part of a friend. |
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> Like taro, though the leaves are tall, still immature. Taro (Colocasia esculenta) is mature only when the leaves produced by the plant are small. When the plant produces its largest leaves the tuber in the ground is still quite small. The saying may be applied to a person who, while yet young and inexperienced, is proud and boastful. |
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> Like Ngiramesemong, rehashing what has been finished. Pertains to a person who repeatedly reminds another of past favors or continually recalls the mistakes of others. (My sources no longer recalled the episode or story from which this idiom derives.) |
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> Those of high family are like the seed pod of the bngaol tree, which falls with its leafy cap upright. The bngaol, a mangrove tree, bears a long pod which is sharply pointed on one end and has a leafy "cap" on the other. When it falls from the tree it generally lands standing in the mud with "cap" end up. Hence, the quality of being socially elite (meteet) is gained naturally at birth. One is born in good standing with a cap or insignia of high rank. It follows, then, that the elite need not display their high standing, everyone knows they are elite when they are born (and there is no other way to become elite). Going a step further, the elite may display proper humility and refer to a group including themselves as kid a remechebuul (we commoners). |
