Selling Oil? 油を売る

[mbarker]

One of the Japanese who likes to quiz me about English recently asked me what phrase or translation I would use for "abura o uru." Literally, this means selling oil, but the connotation is about goofing off when you should be working. For example, when someone is sent to pick up something and takes a long time coming back, the comment that is likely to greet them would be "Where have you been? Were you selling oil?"

Apparently the reference is to the notion of someone who spends a long time explaining why you should buy oil - working hard to sell you - when of course, everyone needs oil (or at least in times past, it was a necessity).

I managed to get out of the discussion by pointing him at "snake oil salesman." When I explained that we used to have medicine men selling stuff in the streets in America, he suddenly got very amused, and said they had similar salesmen in Japan until 100 years ago. I politely didn't comment that there seem to be some still around - there are a lot of "healthy foods" sold in Japan with tonics and such.

Anyway, I'm still noodling around trying to figure out the right phrase if there is one. Goofing off? Daydreaming? Dilly-dallying?

In that scenario about someone coming back slowly, I think I'd be likely to say something like "Where have you been? Did you get lost?"

Interesting trying to get the languages to match up. I never would have thought about "selling oil" as a metaphor for wasting time. Any ideas for an English phrase like that?

Comments

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

What kind of oil? Your second paragraph suggests lamp oil, rather than edible oil or something I haven't thought of.

"Going around Robin Hood's barn" has something of the same meaning, I think.

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Actually, abura means several kinds of oil. The kind you use on bicycles, the kind you cook with, etc. If it is important, people add another word - cooking oil, olive oil, etc. But in checking this, I also found two example sentences that have that funny "wasting time" usage.

First is something like "the girl because of her lateness got the oil squeezed." With the note that this expression means chewing someone out, reprimanding them severely, scolding.

Second is "as long as we're all idly selling oil, why don't we get back to work?" Loafing on the job is selling oil, too.

I still don't really know what kind of oil people think about - I'll have to ask. Good point.

Squeezing oil as an expression for scolding, and selling oil as an expression for loafing.

I like going around Robin Hood's barn! Good suggestion.

[pakwa26.livejournal.com]

The most likely expression to be used if somebody takes a really long time to achieve something fairly simple is that they are "bludging". "Bludge" is both a noun and a verb, something which is a "bludge" is a really easy task, and you might say that 'somebody was having a bit of a bludge' if they took 3 hours to go to the post office and happened to come back with shopping bags.. Somebody who regularly sponges off somebody else in the pub, or who borrows money & doesn't return it might be labelled "a bludger", but it's very perjorative, and so unlikely to be used except in jest. Most Australians would rather be known as 'bastards' than 'bludgers', which I understand is not the case in the UK... don't know about Japan or the States...

Saying somebody is a "Snake-Oil Salesman" or is "Selling Snake-Oil" implies dishonesty here too, or that somebody isn't telling you the whole truth, so you have to be a bit careful with that one. We also have a wealth of expressions to cover not going to work when there's nothing wrong with you, such as "mental health day" or "chucking a sickie [sick day]" (because we have a statutory number of paid days for sick leave each year but they aren't paid out if you leave your job)& so some people have taking that leave down to a fine art.. does the same thing apply in Japan?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Bludging, eh? Nothing to do with the bludgers in Potter's world? I don't think anyone in Japan would know what you were talking about if you called them a bludger. The States - well, last I knew people were pretty touchy about being called a bastard. Not sure about relative levels of upset, though.

You're right about snake oil salesmen being dishonest.

Now, the art of taking holidays or vacation is sadly underdeveloped here in Japan. They are starting to take advantage of national holidays - we have just finished obon, a summer holiday, and just about everyone took it, went home, and didn't even hurry back afterwards. But personal vacation days still are usually not used, or taken only a day or two at a time. Just haven't gotten over the indoctrination to work yet.

Off-topic, but is that a cane toad?

[pakwa26.livejournal.com]

Noooooooooooooooo! Ouch! Cane Toads are nasty horned creatures with leathery skin and poison glands, and they are a pest here, because they are voracious eaters of anything, and they kill anything which ingests them... they were imported during the 1930s to control the sugar cane beetle, and like many introduced species (shades of naming ceremonies on new worlds) are now extremely hard to get rid of, and everybody regrets their introduction, but nobody can think of a way to be rid of them!

(Pakwa is a native American term for frog). The froggie in my picture is a Green Tree Frog, native to Australia. Now I'm thinking it's time to update that picture!

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Ah, right side up it's much easier to see what kind of frog that is. Nice froggy!