Lazarus411 on 8/6/2007 at 17:38
It has? Please accept my most humble apologies. :o
Sombras on 11/6/2007 at 19:07
"Glimpse a cow from a moving train." I have never heard that used as a meaning-laden idiomatic expression before. Maybe it's a British phrase that, somehow, never hopped on a boat, plane, or satellite broadcast across the Atlantic, but I seriously doubt it. No way it's an Aussie expression--not dirty enough. Could be South African. They've been known to do weird things with English on occasion. :p
Sounds to me like a wanker textbook and/or instructor giving it to the students pretty good. :thumb:
sparhawk on 12/6/2007 at 07:52
Never heard that one either, but I can give it a try.
The train is moving fast so you only see stuff for a short time, and I think that "glimpse a cow" part refers to that you thought you saw something big (the cow) while in truth it was maybe something insignificant. That's just my interpretation, because otherwise I don't think the mention of the train makes sense and this would also be my intuition when I first read that.
Another thing that I noticed when looking in some dictionaries is the word "cowcatcher" which is some guy who clears the tracks of a train. Presumably this term comes from the time when cows had more roaming freedom and frequently stood at the tracks, so that the cow was obstructing it's path. Maybe that gives a pointer in this direction, because I found it quite surprising to find such a translation in the same context (cow and train are both included here). So maybe there is a hint?
Gingerbread Man on 12/6/2007 at 14:43
Yeah, but I thought this was supposed to be an example of colloquial English, rather than a sort of "if you heard someone say this, what might they mean?" situation. And considering that not a single native English speaker so far has even vaguely recognised the supposedly common idiom, I still find it bizarre that it would be included in a well-respected textbook for students learning English.
sparhawk on 12/6/2007 at 15:25
Maybe it's a trick to catch the unwary student. :p
Gingerbread Man on 12/6/2007 at 16:26
I have just thought that perhaps the idea was to see if the student knows what "glimpse" means. Which would be a little more reasonable.
I was just thinking that -- if you didn't know the word "glimpse" -- it could be misconstrued in all kinds of hilarious ways.
"To pitch a cow out of a moving train"
"To throw food at a cow out of a moving train"
"To serenade a cow out of a moving train"
"To heartily endorse a cow out of a moving train"
The more I consider it, the more I think the operative bit is "glimpse" rather than some supposed idiom as a whole.
Either that or Virginia Evans is one of Pedro Carolino's descendants.
"To craunch a marmoset out of a moving train"
nickie on 12/6/2007 at 16:58
Well I work with an ex-train driver and as he ran over 4 or 5 cows in the course of his career, I think I can safely say that he never 'glimpsed' them at all :D
So was there a right answer?
Rug Burn Junky on 12/6/2007 at 17:46
Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man
"To craunch a marmoset out of a moving train"
On Friday night, I went to a kickboxing match, where the main event included a fighter nicknamed "Crom."
Prompting the exchange:
:confused:: What kind of a nickname is that?
:): It's perfectly cromulent, it embiggens him.
:confused:: You're a dork.
:): Yep.
Gingerbread Man on 12/6/2007 at 17:52
Pop culture is bad for you.
Why, just yesterday at the grocery store I was chastised for being "such a nerd" for telling my darling wife "pres butan to go" after she swiped the credit card through.
Luckily she didn't hear me ask the Comcast tech guy "how do I fixed web?" that time.
ignatios on 12/6/2007 at 18:04
No that's just wives being bad for you!
I think I've heard the phrase before, but I have a mind like a sieve and can't remember where or in what context. I could just be remembering it from this thread.
Anyway, seeing cows from a moving train is a pretty easy thing to do, as passenger trains often pass near farmland (at least around here). To glimpse a cow from a moving train doesn't require any special effort; you just have to be looking out the window.
So if you can't glimpse a cow from a moving train, you're probably generally incompetent.
edit: I also fail at reading comprehension; the inability to glimpse a cow wasn't even mentioned in the original post.
Well I still maintain that wives are bad for you.
:erm:
