# brown nose



## mshnyb

En inglés tenemos un refrán que dice "brown noser." 

Este frase no es educado. Este frase es vulgar. 

¿Existe un frase paralelo en español?

Beatrice

Please show me my errors; I’ll try to make different mistakes next time!


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## aurilla

En Puerto Rico, se le dice "lameojo" / "lambeojo"

*lameojo / lambeojo:* persona que elogia a otra para obtener favores de ella. 

Se considera despectivo.

definición de brown noser: 
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=brown+noser


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## SaritaSarang

Brown noser is not vulgar


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## Laria

En Mexico decimos "barbero"


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## aurilla

SaritaSarang said:


> Brown noser is not vulgar


 
Actually, it is considered vulgar. It means the person has his / her nose so up the other person's butt that its gotten brown from the shit.


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## la reine victoria

In the UK we also say such a person is an   "arse licker".  Extremely vulgar.  









LRV


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## aurilla

la reine victoria said:


> In the UK we also say such a person is an  "arse licker". Extremely vulgar.
> 
> 
> LRV


 
The US version is "ass kisser"


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## SaritaSarang

aurilla said:


> Actually, it is considered vulgar. It means the person has his / her nose so up the other person's butt that its gotten brown from the shit.



It may have come from meaning this, but when people say, "hes a brown noser"  it is definatly not vulgar, a vulgar phrase would be something like 
"hes a kiss ass" or " hes always kissing ass".   I hear the brown noser phrase a lot and its not as bad as all that. Most people dont even know thats where it comes from, so I guess its just a matter of opinion.
I know in school I can say in front of teachers " hes a brown noser" and its completly acceptable, where as I can say something vulgar like hes a kiss ass etc, and be given a stern look/office etc...


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## aurilla

Otra frase equivalente en español es "lambe botas"


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## ERASMO_GALENO

aurilla said:


> Otra frase equivalente en español es "*lame* botas"


 
*Erasmo.*


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## aurilla

ERASMO_GALENO said:


> *Erasmo.*


 

Vale la corrección, sólo que vulgarmente le dicen "lambe"


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## Luis Albornoz

otras alternativas

lameculos 
chupamedias (coloquial, aceptable para todo el mundo)


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## aurilla

Luis Albornoz said:


> otras alternativas
> 
> lameculos
> chupamedias (coloquial, aceptable para todo el mundo)


 
Yep, another two good ones.


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## aurilla

By the way, a brown noser is also a "suck up".


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## ORL

Está el muy popular "lameculos", y atención, que la palabra es compuesta y no se escribe como dos por separado. 
Otras opciones son "lamebotas", "alcahuete", "faldero", "oreja", "buchón", "ortiba", etc.

Y atendiendo a tu pedido de correcciones:



En inglés tenemos una frase: "brown noser." 

Esta frase *es de uso vulgar*. 

¿Existe *una* frase *equivalente* en español?


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## JESUS MARIA

En España:

"pelota"

"adulador"

haay una palabra muccho más vulgar que no puedo esscribirla.(Chupa..)

Saludos.


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## atenea_84

En España lo que más se usa en el habla coloquial es lameculos y pelota.


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## Carlos Yanaez

En Venezuela... "*Jala Bolas*"


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## RaulCavazos

Laria said:


> En Mexico decimos "barbero"


 
También:
Lambiscón
Lamehuevos
Abrepuertas


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## Darío Anselmo

En mi país a ese tipo de personas se les llama "brocha", porque la imagen original era que le pasan la lengua de arriba abajo a ese a quien adulan, al grado de asemejarse a una brocha por una pared.  Pero hoy en día casi nadie reconoce ese origen, de modo que se considera un término inofensivo, no tan chocante; un poco como lo que sucedió con "brown nose" en inglés.

También utilizamos una gran parte de los sinónimos que han anotado arriba.


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## MrSchossow

Aquí en Colombia decímos: lambón o chupamedias.


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## Carmen Carmona

Que _brown noser_ sea *coloquial*, no quiere decir que sea vulgar!


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## yirgster

Late to the party ...

I agree completely with SaritaSarang: *brown-nose* and it's variants, e.g. *brown-noser*, are NOT vulgar in AE.  *kiss-ass*_,_ a synonym, is vulgar, though not, as I see it, horribly so.


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## yirgster

Many possibilities are here as well as at: brown-nose - English-Spanish Dictionary - WordReference.com.

My question is which of these are considered actually to be vulgar? And which colloquial and/or slang but not vulgar.

This is an important question because ... My younger son works in a Mexican restaurant (in Nashville, Tennessee!!!) and asked me how to say *brown-nose* and *kiss-ass* in Spanish. I'm assuming he means in Mexican Spanish. Per my previous post I don't consider *brown-nose* to be vulgar at all, but *kiss-ass* definitely is.


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## franzjekill

Una posibilidad no vulgar y no mencionada hasta ahora, para los países que el DLE indica:

arrastrado -  adj. Cuba, El Salv., Ur. y Ven. adulador. U. t. c. s.


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## OtroLencho

SaritaSarang said:


> It may have come from meaning this, but when people say, "hes a brown noser"  it is definatly not vulgar,


I disagree.  It's hard to understand the implications of the phrase and not consider it vulgar.  Perhaps those who use it lightly have never thought about the meaning behind it.


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## yirgster

Not sure what you mean by "the implications of the phrase". If you're referring to the history it's only relevant if people know the history. I doubt that more than a very small number do. If you're referring to the meaning of the phrase as it's understood that doesn't make it vulgar any more than calling someone immoral or unethical would. If you're saying that someone should understand this based on literal implication of the words (but then we're really back to history), this doesn't follow. The phrase has attained a meaning of it's own whatever it's origination. Something like "when the cows come home" or "when the chickens come home to roost" and many, many others. Perhaps I misunderstand what you're saying.

The previous response by SaritaSarang expresses my views and parallels my experience in both using and hearing it, i.e. using *brown nose* in contexts where vulgarity would not have been acceptable. And, except in obvious contexts of joking, never used lightly, given it's disparaging nature and often the highly disparaging tone in which I've heard it uttered.

But, investigating a bit further, since on a couple of occasions I've discovered that my own usage was not, to my surprise, standard, I don't see *brown nose* denominated as vulgar or offensive in any of the several dictionary definitions I looked at. Informal or slang, but not offensive. Merriam-Webster labels it as_ informal + disparaging_, which it obviously is. dictionary.com labels it as slang (but nothing else) and says to compare it to *ass-kissing* which, by contrast, it labels as _Slang; Vulgar_. freedictionary.com says slang, the Cambridge English Dictionary says informal. And, to look back in time a bit further and so closer to the history, my hard copy _American Heritage Dictionary_, _3rd edition, 1992_, says informal. In 1969 or 1970 I purchased the original first edition, but looks like I must have ditched it when acquiring the later editions. I have a huge unabridged from the early 60's--the type you bought a stand for--but I'd have to dig it out.

OtroLencho, perhaps you grew up in or live in a more refined environment than I where *brown nose* is considered vulgar. It's quite possible. But in the absence of other evidence I think it seems pretty evident that it's not considered vulgar in standard English. I mean, dictionaries are notorious for disagreeing but in this aspect the ones that I've looked at, all reputable, are in total agreement in not classifying *brown nose* as vulgar, offensive, or similar.


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## OtroLencho

yirgster said:


> Not sure what you mean by "the implications of the phrase".


For years I've been puzzled about how idioms work.  On a personal level, one of the reasons they have such impact beyond their mere word content is because in addition to the dictionary meaning, they also provide implicit associations with their symbolic roots.  If I hear "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" I may actually visualize a stable with folks checking a horse's teeth, including the sounds and smells of that environment.  I think this may be why idioms are so problematic for second language learners: they often don't have the contextual background beyond the dictionary meaning.

Applying that to "brown nosing", a result of having one's nose stuck in another's ass crack and coming out with crap all over his nose, I just automatically classify that as a vision I might not want to evoke in polite company, i.e. "vulgar".

Your convincing evidence that it's not generally considered vulgar, makes me wonder how most people process idiomatic phrases.  Doesn't everybody relate to them on a visceral, symbolic level?


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## NatiV

Chupamedias


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## yirgster

A quick reply (although it turned out not to be such). First, most people I believe simply accept the meaning of an expression as is. The meaning is fixed for the expression as a whole, whatever the individual words. Often time, the individual words don't even make sense.

In the two cases you adduce, in both you've gone beyond the meanings of the words. You can visualize "never look a gift horse in the mouth" based on the meanings of the words but this by itself doesn't give understanding of the expression and specifically it's historical origin. For that you need an external (to the meaning of the words and their visualization) piece of knowledge: that a horse's age and its implied well-being can be determined by examining its teeth.

But, again, I suspect that only a very few, even if they know this, think of it when saying: NLAGHITM. The meaning is fixed: "don't be unappreciative of a gift." (But dictionaries as usual vary on the exact meaning.)

Re *brown nose*, it's the same thing. The literal meaning is a nose which is brown. You're bringing in a fact external to the literal meaning and its visualization: namely, that it comes from someone sticking their nose up someone else's butt. And, actually even more than this, that the purpose of doing the latter is to curry favor.

It could have had some other origin. For example, a English public (i.e., private in the US) school tradition, a religious ceremony or who knows what. And, the origin of some expressions is simply obscure.

If you think that it's just obvious that *brown nose* derives from sticking one's nose up ... Then consider *brownie points*. Someone would get *brownie points* as a result of sticking of being a *brown nose*, so it would seem.

But, no, *brownie points* seems more often attributed to the fact that the Girl Scout Brownies gave points for good deeds and such. (for example at dictionary.com). A more detailed explanation of four possible origins can be found here, 'Brownie points' - the meaning and origin of this phrase, but none of them have anything to do with _*brown nosing*_.

Again, I think most people don't think of anything other than the expression's fixed meaning as an expression.

*The New Yorker* magazine would occasionally have a cartoon based on the literal interpretation of an expression, the joke being the difference between the current fixed meaning of the expression as a whole and that of the literal meanings of the words in the situation of the cartoon.



OtroLencho said:


> For years I've been puzzled about how idioms work.  On a personal level, one of the reasons they have such impact beyond their mere word content is because in addition to the dictionary meaning, they also provide implicit associations with their symbolic roots.  If I hear "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" I may actually visualize a stable with folks checking a horse's teeth, including the sounds and smells of that environment.  I think this may be why idioms are so problematic for second language learners: they often don't have the contextual background beyond the dictionary meaning.
> 
> Applying that to "brown nosing", a result of having one's nose stuck in another's ass crack and coming out with crap all over his nose, I just automatically classify that as a vision I might not want to evoke in polite company, i.e. "vulgar".
> 
> Your convincing evidence that it's not generally considered vulgar, makes me wonder how most people process idiomatic phrases.  Doesn't everybody relate to them on a visceral, symbolic level?


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## OtroLencho

yirgster said:


> Again, I think most people don't think of anything other than the expression's fixed meaning as an expression.



I have no idea; time to start asking around. 

If that's the case, folks are missing out on one of the richer aspects of human language...


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## JonRT

aurilla said:


> Actually, it is considered vulgar. It means the person has his / her nose so up the other person's butt that its gotten brown from the shit.


Old thread, but I wanted to point out that it’s not vulgar in relaxed company. I wouldn’t even have a problem saying this in a  business setting, depending on how formal it is. In everyday company it’s not really vulgar, any more that saying “shoot” or “dang” is vulgar.


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