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English-French-German and Italian idioms

Posted by Philimaus on August 08, 2005

Hi community, I am working on a comparison of English-French-German and Italian idioms. I wonder what the origin of "I could eat a horse" could be, I mean, yes, it's an hyperbole, but why could English speaking people eat a horse while in French they "have an appetite like a wolf" (the same in Italian) and in German the appetite could be either of a bear or wolf. German, Italian and French designate the size/strength of appetite while the English idiom refers to what could be eaten. Why a horse? Do you see any cultural implications as regards horsemeat or any geographical reasons (e.g. where bears and wolves are usually to be found)? Any help with that one will be highly appreciated and cited in the paper ! Please feel also free to send me some other idioms and their translations in the four languages in question where the origins of the different realisations of the same semantic image are clear - I'll be very happy to share some of my findings with you as well!

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