The heat(ing) is on, the new President has been sworn in, holiday period is drawing to a close. Life provides us with plenty of situations when we can we hear some drivel. To help deal with this and overcome the absurdities let’s tackle another dose of linguistic puzzles.
1. świrować – to go bananas (EM)
2. opowiadać duby smalone – to taletell (-)
3. wyzionąć ducha – to give up the ghost (Name)
4. opowiadać dyrdymały – talk bilge (Island1)
5. na haju – spaced out (Steve)
6. bujda na resorach – a cock-and-bull story (EM)
7. coś diabli wzięli – to go up in smoke (Island1)
8. trajkotać – to jabber (Steve)
9. w granicach rozsądku – within reason (Steve)
10. bez ładu i składu – without rhyme and reason (EM)
I’m sure the list above was compiled bez ładu i składu…
Enjoy anyway!
POLANDiAN 
This is a virtually thoughtless reply based completely on Kompas, except for 5, where Miejski słownik slangu gave me the definition which Kompas translated ie non of my personal expertise.
1. to go nuts
2. to tell a fishy story
3. to breathe his last
4. to speak nonsense
5. stoned
6. rubbish
7. something the devil took
8. to jabber
9. within reason
10. in utter confusion
The heating is off, the post was meant to be scheduled for yesterday (out of tradition competitions are published on Wendesdays), but I was off for two days and simply couldn’t even notice the post hadn’t come out. Apologies for the delay.
Correct parts are:
1. ‘to go’
2. ‘story’
2. opowiadać duby smalone – talking tommyrot
Sorry, “story” should apparently be included…
Hm, what about tommyrot for no. 4 instead?
10. in a haphazard way
7. coś diabli wzięli – go down in flames
3. to give up the ghost
1. to go mad/lose one’s marbles
4. to tell a tall story
5. to be on a high
6. complete baloney/ a cock-and-bull story
2. to spin a yarn
7. go down the drain
10. no rhyme or reason / at loose ends
3. draw one’s last breath
1. to go off your rocker
2. spin a story
3. give up the ghost
4. talk nonsense
6. a tall tale
7. (something’s) gone to hell
10. no rhyme or reason
Blimey, we have five out of ten phrases guessed
No. 4 indeed starts with “talk”
Quite possibly no. 5 will be the most difficult – ******-***
1. go crazy
2. to tell made up things; to spin a yarn; to fib;
4. to tell made up things; to jabber (gibber jabber); gibberish;
5. get high; get wasted; wrecked;
7. something is lost/gone, like an idea or a plan, for example, literally: devils took it
To go a step further, the new President (capital P); and “Wednesday.”
Thanks Jeannie, moving on ;)
What’s Jeannie’s comment refering to?
I was laughing when I looked up “na haju”, and saw it means “get high” (alt. feel happy and free). I can’t get used to how english expressions are transformed for polish use. :-D But what synonym is Bartek looking for?
Jeannie – pointed at errors in the post and my first comment. But I still don’t know if ‘president’ shoudl strat with capital letter.
na haju – AFAIK it means under influence of drugs and unaware of what is going on around.
1. go bonkers
2. weave a story
4. talk gobble-de-gook
5. spaced out
hints:
1. go, but not bonkers (although it’s correct too), also starts with ‘b’
2. it’s one verb
4. talk, the second word consists of five letters
7. ** ** ** *****
1. to go broken?
4. to talk out of your hat / to talk out of the back of your head
1. go bananas
4. Talk trash
hints – let’s reveal some letters
2. to t***t****
4. to talk *i*g*
7. to go ** in **o**
now I believe we’re a step away from closure.
I disagree. ‘President’ is usually only capitalised when mentioning a specific president (e.g. ‘President Komorowski,’ or ‘the President of the Republic of Poland,’ but ‘Poland’s president’ or ‘Komorowski was sworn in as president’) and even this is far from universal—it depends on in-house style rules.
4. talk bilge?
7. up in smoke?
I demand a response!!
Treat updating the post as a response – you are one of the winners!
And I demand somebody finally guesses opowiadać duby smalone is ‘to taletell’, because I want to close this round!