# Turkeys voting for Christmas



## Arrius

An economics expert on the radio this morning described the latest  strike by the postmen of the (British) Royal Mail scheduled for later this week as *the turkeys voting for Christmas*. Roast turkey is the central part of the traditional Christmas meal. This graphic set phrase refers to any decision or action taken by a particular group that is likely to have negative results for those taking it. In this case, it was thought, it might further alienate the general public, cause customers to use alternative services in the private sector in future, and possibly result in the privatization of the British postal service leading to loss of employment for the strikers. I should like to know if other languages have an equivalent idiom or set phrase for this idea. I vaguely remember that the Americans talk about the turkeys voting for_ Thanksgiving_, instead of Christmas, but I'm not certain.


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## aztlaniano

In the US having a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving is mandatory (I think it's the 17th or 18th amendment to the Constitution). Thanksgiving is actually more important than Christmas since it always falls on a Thursday and guarantees a four-day weekend, as Easter does (Good Friday plus Easter Monday bank holiday). The president of the United States pardons one single turkey each year; the rest get the axe:
Todos los años, desde 1947, la Federación Nacional del Pavo entrega al presidente estadounidense un pavo para el Día de Acción de Gracias. Cada año, en un _show_ de ceremonial magnanimidad, el presidente perdona la vida al pájaro —y se come otro, claro—. Tras recibir el indulto presidencial, el pavo es enviado a _Frying Pan Park_, en Virginia, para acabar de vivir su vida natural. El resto de los 50 millones de pavos que se criaron para el Día de Acción de Gracias es sacrificado y comido.

Evidentemente, si los pavos se pronunciasen a favor de la celebración del Día de Acción de Gracias estarían perjudicando sus propios intereses (pero que yo sepa no se les consulta al respecto).


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## Arrius

Thank you *aztlaniano.* That's very interesting: Bush must have pardoned more turkeys than he did men on death row, but you haven't said how the thread sentence, which as you have noticed is metaphorical, is expressed idiomatically in your native tongue (plus the literal meaning), if indeed it is expressed. I am beginning to feel I am flogging a dead horse here, or should I say a dead turkey! Perhaps the more or less synonymous and self-explanatory phrase
*to shoot oneself in the foot* might inspire a few other replies in this All Languages thread.


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## Juan Nadie

In Spanish there is a phrase which is "tirar piedras a su propio tejado" meaning "to throw stones to his roof". I think this is closer to your second sentence.


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## aztlaniano

_El tiro le salió por la culata_ is close to "he shot himself in the foot, although more literally it's "it backfired on him".
Juan Nadie's "tirar piedras sobre su propio tejado" is closer to the perverse turkeys.


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## Arrius

aztlaniano said:


> _El tiro le salió por la culata_ is close to "he shot himself in the foot, although more literally it's "it backfired on him".
> Juan Nadie's "tirar piedras sobre su propio tejado" is closer to the perverse turkeys.


 
*To backfire* is the just right idea, referring to "a miscalculation that recoils on its maker". We would also say"It/The plan blew up in his face".
One German equivalent is d*er Schuß ist nach hinten losgegangen* (the shot came out through the back/went backwards) 
and the French l*e plan s'est retourné contre lui* (_the plan turned back (backfired) against him)._
But native speakers could no doubt find more colourful and colloquial ways of saying this.
Another related English expression occurred to me that I haven't heard for years, *he was hoist with his own petard* (he was blown up by the mine/bomb he was going to use on others). This practice is unfortunately only too common, and intentional, these days!


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## Juan Nadie

Ah! Good to know.
There is another sentence in Spanish which I think would be "he was hoist with his own petard" which is "ir a por lana y salir trasquilado" (to go for wool and end up scalped ¿?), but that would be related, and it is not the turkeys' one.


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## enoo

In French, there is "*Se tirer une balle dans le pied*", which is the translation of "to shoot oneself in the foot", but I don't know any equivalent for the "the turkeys voting for Christmas".


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## Arrius

Juan Nadie said:


> Ah! Good to know.
> There is another sentence in Spanish which I think would be "he was hoist with his own petard" which is "ir a por lana y salir trasquilado" (to go for wool and end up scalped ¿?), but that would be related, and it is not the turkeys' one.


Despite the translation, this Spanish saying is a little difficult to grasp. It appears to me that the idea is of someone going to shear a sheep and take its wool who ends up losing not only his own hair (wool) but also his scalp instead.


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## Maroseika

Russian - _поступать, как унтер-офицерская вдова_ (*to do smth. like a widow of the non-commissioned officer*) or _сам себя высек_ (*he has flogged himself* *by himself*).
The sense is that somebody has run into trouble that he has made himself.

Idiom is based on the Gogol's play (1836), where a widow complains that she was illigally flogged at the police station, but the Governor is making excuses to the Inspector-General alleging that the widow has flogged herself by herself.
As we see, modern sense of the idiom is rather far from the original plot, because in fact the ill-fated widow never did anything like that. But nevertheless it's widely spread nowadays in this strange sense, even in spite of  studying this old play at schools up to now.


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## Arrius

But what was the widow allegedly trying to achieve by flogging herself? The idea of the thread is that of a person attempting to gain some advantage who suffers pain or disaster when things go badly wrong. 
(Interesting that your word for NCO is taken from German_ Unteroffizier_).Gogol is great!


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## aztlaniano

Arrius said:


> ... ends up losing not only his own hair (wool) but also his scalp instead.


No, it's "go for wool and end up being shorn/sheared" (oneself).
He/you/they goes/go to shear a sheep but gets/get shorn/sheared instead.
_Shorn/sheared_, not scalped. 
Creo que "shorn" es la forma más tradicional, pero vale "sheared" también.
(Sorry, Juan, I should have advised you to correct that yesterday. "Scalp" is a possible translation, but not in this case.)

*trasquilar**.*
(De _tras_1 y _esquilar_2).

*1. *tr. Cortar el pelo a trechos, sin orden ni arte. U. t. c. prnl.
*2. tr. Cortar el pelo o la lana a algunos animales.*
DRAE


*shear*
• *verb* (past part. *shorn* or *sheared*) *1* cut the wool off (a sheep or other animal). *2* cut off with scissors or shears. *3* (*be shorn of*) be deprived or stripped of. *4* break off or cause to break off, owing to a structural strain. 
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/shear?view=uk


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## Maroseika

Arrius said:


> But what was the widow allegedly trying to achieve by flogging herself? The idea of the thread is that of a person attempting to gain some advantage who suffers pain or disaster when things go badly wrong.



Well, the widow (allegedly) wanted to slander the Governor and gain compensation. But in fact the only result she achieved was that she was flogged (no matter by whom). 
I see however this idiom doesn't match the title one too much.



> (Interesting that your word for NCO is taken from German_ Unteroffizier_).


Sure, it is - like almost all other Russian military ranks.


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## Maroseika

aztlaniano said:


> ...The Imperial Russian Army entered the Napoleonic Wars ... had been thoroughly reorganised on the Prussian model by the tsar's (Alexander I's) father Paul I. ...
> http://wapedia.mobi/en/Imperial_Russian_Army#6.


Actually the one who first has introduced european-like ranks in Russian army was Peter the Great (in the end of the XVI cent.).


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## Arrius

And in between there was Catherine the Great, an Austrian lady, who was so interested in the Imperial Army that she went to bed with a number of its officers. But it would be prudent now to return to our suicidal turkeys and shooting ourselves in the foot.


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## Maroseika

Arrius said:


> And in between there was Catherine the Great, an Austrian lady, who was so interested in the Imperial Army that she went to bed with a number of its officers. But it would be prudent now to return to our suicidal turkeys and shooting ourselves in the foot.


Sure, it would. But not before I say that all these stories about Catherine II is nothing more than a rumor. And she was not from Austria but from Prussia.


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## Maroseika

aztlaniano said:


> Right, but "end of the 17th (XVII) century", end of the 1600s.


Sure, you are right, just misprinted.


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## aztlaniano

Lenin wrote something along the lines of the following (I quote from memory)which may be applicable to the case at hand:
_The capitalists will sell us the rope to hang them with._
Here's a version in Spanish:
_Cuando llegue el momento de ahorcar a los capitalistas, competirán entre ellos para vendernos la soga a menor precio"._

Lenín


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## Mauricet

The French version I heard of this Lenin sentence is _Les capitalistes *se battront pour* nous vendre la corde pour les pendre_.


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## aztlaniano

If turkeys, instead of having their carcasses end up in rubbish tips, received proper burials (but not suffrage), rather than voting for Thanksgiving (or Christmas) they could _dig their own grave_(s).
In Spanish "cavar sus propias fosas/tumbas"
In French "creuser leurs propres tombes".
I'm not sure whether grave/fosa/tombe should be in singular or plural.


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## Mahaodeh

In Arabic I know of two, I don't know which one fits better:

إجا يكحلها، عماها = ija yikaHHilha, Amaha = he tried to put kohl (a type of traditional eyeliner) on it but he blinded it (it here refers to an eye). It's used when someone tries to make things better but he messes things up instead.

and,

دبور وزن على خراب عشه = dabbor wo zann Ala kharaab Ishshu = a wasp that buzzez for the distruction of it's nest. Used for someone whoes actions cause harm to himself.


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## aztlaniano

Mahaodeh said:


> In Arabic I know of two, I don't know which one fits better:
> 
> إجا يكحلها، عماها = ija yikaHHilha, Amaha = he tried to put kohl (a type of traditional eyeliner) on it but he blinded it (it here refers to an eye). It's used when someone tries to make things better but he messes things up instead.
> 
> and,
> 
> دبور وزن على خراب عشه = dabbor wo zann Ala kharaab Ishshu = a wasp that buzzes for the d*e*struction of it's _its _nest. Used for someone whose actions cause harm to himself.


 
The analogy with the striking postal workers seems more exact in the first case; in fact, more exact than the analogy with the Christmas turkeys.
The postal workers hope to embellish their lives with higher salaries, but may end up poking themselves in the eye and losing their jobs.

The second case sounds more like pulling the temple down around oneself, or perhaps cutting off one's nose to spite one's face; punishing the evil even though it means harming oneself as well.


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## federicoft

I'm pretty sure there's a similar idiom in Italian, but I can't think of it right now.
You can say "darsi la zappa sui piedi" (to give the hoe to one's foot) or "scavarsi la fossa con le proprie mani" (to dig your own grave), but that's not exactly what I'm thinking of.

Another related expression is "beccarsi come i capponi di Renzo" (to peck each other as Renzo's capons). It is one of the many quotes from Manzoni's _Betrothed_ that has entered common language:



> I leave it     to the reader to think how the journey was enjoyed by those poor beasts, thus bound     together and held by the feet, with their head downward, in the hand of a man who,     agitated by so many passions, accompanied with gesture the thoughts which passed     tumultuously through his mind.
> 
> Now he extended his arm     in anger, now he raised it in despair, now he brandished it in the air, as if to threaten,     and, in every instance, inflicted terrible shocks upon them, and caused those four pendent     heads to bob; they, meanwhile, vigorously applying themselves to peck each other, as too     often happens among friends in adversity.



It is used when people sharing the same destiny compete with one another instead of cooperating for the common good, ultimately leading to a poor outcome for all.


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