2010-07-31
Nutless
Adjective: "useless", something without any forseeable purpose
If a Dutch person is performing a task that has no possible benefits, that task is often called "nutteloos". However, from my English-speaking background, whenever I hear this word, it sounds much more descriptive, as it suggests neutering and eunuchs. This is never a nice thing to think about (or FYI, to google search... this will take a few weeks to get out of my mind...)
Anyway. So I think we can all agree that, not having any balls renders a male useless for some specific tasks. However, we can extend this expression to actions too, to really drive home the pointlessness of it. For example, it may be nutless to get a brazillian if you are a eunuch.
I also like the structural parallels with the well-known expression "as useful as a spare prick at a wedding", for which the Gazelle equivalent would be: "as useful as an empty nut-sack". I like it. It is an effective, poignant analogy that easily crosses over into the English domain without explanation.
It can also be said that something 'has no nut'. [Het heeft geen nut], which means the same thing as nutless.
Antonym: When something is, on the contrary, useful, Dutch people call it "nuttig". I like to translate this to"Nutty", which always brings a smile to my face as I recall this scene from Austin Powers.
Example sentences:
"Abstinence is nutless"
"I don't want to clean my room, it has no nut. It will just get dirty again"
Bonus:
Seeing Scrat from the Ice Age trilogy made me want to see more of him. Maybe you do too. Here is a glorious short film about Scrat from Pixar's Ice Age. You might even say this his whole life is nutless.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment