# an idiom to express avarice



## mirla

Hello!
In Russia when we want to buy something, but it costs more that we are prepared to pay or we just don´t want to pay that much we say that 'a toad is strangling me'. Is there a similar expression to such kind of situations in English?


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## ewie

mirla said:


> 'a toad is strangling me'


How would the actual dialogue that this appears in go, Mirla? _[in English, obviously]_

It's always easier to come up with idioms if we have an exact situation to slot them in to.


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## DocPenfro

I'm sure that there are lots; however English people are not renowned for their ability to haggle.  If you have paid a very high price for something, a common expression is "It cost an arm and a leg."


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## mirla

'to cost an arm and a leg' you would use AFTER you've paid, but I'm searching for the expression for a situation like this: two friends are looking at a dress in a shop, and one says: I really like this dress, but look at the price! I'm not sure I'll buy it. I have the money, but 'a toad is strangling me', it's just, I know that within a few month it will cost two-three times less and I just don't want to pay so much now.


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## Thomas Tompion

Hi Mirla,

The fact that it cost an arm and a leg might stop one from buying it.

The French say it cost the skin off my buttocks.  It's interesting that the high cost should immediately be associated with the loss of parts of the body in both languages.


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## mirla

Yes, it is interesting. But is there nothing, no idiom about hesitation?


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## Loob

Hi mirla

I can't think of an idiom to mean "Even though I've got the money, I don't feel like paying such an exorbitant price".

The closest I can come to it is "I'm feeling a bit tight-fisted at the moment".


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## DocPenfro

> But is there nothing, no idiom about hesitation?



I think that there is a difference in cultural tradition.  We associate skill in haggling with Middle Eastern/Eastern societies, and English people tend to be dismissive of such practices.  Doubtless this is to our disadvantage, but the result in linguistic terms is that I can think of no obvious equivalent to your "toad".  However, there are plenty of ways to grumble afterwards that you paid too much.


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## ewie

_I'm strapped for cash at the moment_ = "I'm short of money at the moment".

By the way, Mirla, your question seems to have very little to do with 'avarice'

And who mentioned haggling?


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## morzh

Ewie,

Yes it does....for a Russian 

You have to make an allowance for the other language using the same word for being stingy, greedy, or avaricious.
In Russian it is the same word (zhadnost'). And the expression "zhaba dushit" (toad is stifling me, literally) means exactly that.

Now, the exact meaning of this Russian idiom is "I want this, but I hate to pay for it".

I've just asked a native here, and he's confirmed my suspicion, that there is no good idiom for that, and he usually calls it simply "*being cheap*" / "*feeling cheap*".


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## panjandrum

mirla said:


> 'to cost an arm and a leg' you would use AFTER you've paid, but I'm searching for the expression for a situation like this: two friends are looking at a dress in a shop, and one says: I really like this dress, but look at the price! I'm not sure I'll buy it. I have the money, but 'a toad is strangling me', it's just, I know that within a few month it will cost two-three times less and I just don't want to pay so much now.


In that context we, in my part of the world, might say that the shopkeeper was "putting the arm in".
The sense is that I believe the shopkeeper has put an excessively high price on the dress, more than it's worth.
Unfortunately I can only find one online example of this:
_A:  Scan have said thay will ship but would charge £20 per Kilo - its about 7Kg!
B:  Scan is really putting the arm in.
Source​_


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## morzh

I asked a native here, having translated the Russian idiom to him, and he said that the only way he could express this was "I am feeling cheap".


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## PaulQ

I really like this dress, but look at the price! I'm not sure I'll buy it. I have the money, but I feel *I'm being ripped-off/done/turned over/robbed*."

Also, "*I've got deep pockets and short arms.*" and "I'm *tight[-fisted]*."


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## morbo

For sure, it doesn't have anything to do with culture or tradition or both combined. Since it's all about not being able to talk oneself into shelling out money on something, then even if haggling is involved, it's haggling with oneself, not with a shopkeeper at a middle-eastern market over the price of a rug. And, honestly, I don't see how haggling over a price of a dried monkey head is different from negotiating a business deal or talking down the sticker price of a new car, the difference being, of course, that the latter two would proceed in a most civilized Western way.


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## DocPenfro

> For sure, it doesn't have anything to do with culture or tradition



Maybe not, but you will observe that none of the BE & AE native speakers have been able to come up with anything as colourful as the homicidal toad.


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## Thomas Tompion

It's a shame.  We've got _his eyes are bigger than his stomach_ to express gluttony.


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## morbo

I don't know why, having written what I've written, I forgot to say that there are no toads in this expression. "Жаба" is a russian word for angina. So the idea here is that of a suffocating sensation produced by the fit of unwillingness to part with money.

I always forget to write something.
Also, "жаба" is a word for toad, of course, and I fear the toad is what people think of when saying this. But the meaning of "душит жаба" is "to suffer from a fit of angina". But translate it literally, and voila, the strangling toad has appeared...


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## Hermione Golightly

Oh dear, , how very disappointing - I rather liked that homicidal toad and had been planning to use it at the first opportunity, "as the Russian saying goes".Now I'm left with a boring old 'heart attack'.

 "It gives me a heart attack just thinking of paying that much"

Hermione


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## morzh

It is neither really a toad nor it is the angina pectoris, but the mangled French "jabot" that does sound like the Russian toad, that got mangled into the toad/angina" (folks etymology).

None of the idioms I've seen here so far is really a good fit, but then we have to come to terms with the fact that not every idiom, or even a word for that matter can be adequately translated from any language to any language.

Often times the translation becomes descriptive rather than a word for a word, or an idiom for an idiom.

This one is well explained by:

- I would really like it but I'm feeling cheap.


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## ewie

_This thread has been moved here from English Only as we were getting precisely nowhere with it there._


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## morbo

Jabot??
http://vasmer.slovaronline.com/%D0%96/%D0%96%D0%90/3747-ZHABA


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## Packard

"Sticker shock" is a phrase used to express amazement at the cost of an automobile.  It has been extended in use and is applied to other purchases.

"Greedy bastards" comes to mind when someone is clearly jacking up prices to line his pockets with gold.  

I used to have to buy some medications for my cat (not covered by insurance) and it cost me about $60.00 per month.  But Merck found that it was a "niche" drug with limited use and sold the patent to another drug company.  They raised the price to $900.00 per month, which made the product unatainable.  (But my cat out-smarted them all and lived to 24 years to spite them).  "Greedy bastards" is the term I used for the new drug company.


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## Hoax

I think it is not polite to post links to different dictionaries as Wordreference is a dictionary itself but there was suggested the following equivalent: A wish delayed is a wish denied. Can it be of any use?


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## morbo

Hermione Golightly said:


> Oh dear, , how very disappointing - I rather liked that homicidal toad and had been planning to use it at the first opportunity, "as the Russian saying goes".



Well, since in Russian this expression has accumulated rather vivid animalistic connotations, which actually dominate over its initial sense, why not use it this way?


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## gvozd

DocPenfro said:


> Maybe not, but you will observe that none of the BE & AE native speakers have been able to come up with anything as colourful as the homicidal toad.



Well, to be more precise... You should not understand that expression literally. Chest toad (грудная жаба) is an outdated term for *Angina pectoris. *A greedy person when looking at an expensive thing has a choking sensation.


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## Hoax

I may suggest the following translation: I have greed attack. 

It remains some disease connotation in it, like in panic attack or febrile attack or heart attack, etc.


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## ewie

That would be _I'm having a greed attack_, Hoax.  (I like it, though)


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## Hoax

ewie said:


> That would be _I'm having a greed attack_, Hoax.  (I like it, though)


Yeah, we are not friends with english tenses unfortunately =) thanks =)


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## ewie

If you wanted something a bit more playful: _I'm having an attack of the greedies_.  (Based on _an attack of *the munchies*._)



Thomas Tompion said:


> It's a shame.  We've got _his eyes are bigger than his stomach_ to express gluttony.


Or _My eyes are bigger than my purse _[ladies] / _wallet_ [gents].


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## Hoax

ewie said:


> Or _My eyes are bigger than my purse _[ladies] / _wallet_ [gents].



This one doesn't work as in russian example it means that a person doesn't want to pay even if his/her wallet/purse is big enough.


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## ewie

The Russian idiom seems to cover more or less everything, doesn't it?  I agree with previous speakers that there's no English equivalent that covers _all_ of it


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## Packard

ewie said:


> The Russian idiom seems to cover more or less everything, doesn't it? I agree with previous speakers that there's no English equivalent that covers _all_ of it




"Gordon Gekko'ed". (A new--brand new--coinage).

Gordon Gekko was most famous (from "Wall Street", the movie) for having said, "Greed is good".


If you Google "Gorden Gekko greed is good speech" you can get a video clip of the speech.  Part of it is quoted below:


_The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. 
_


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## morbo

Packard said:


> "Gordon Gekko'ed".



I doubt the guy would've hesitated to spend on something he wanted or needed. And he would've paid for it with the money he sucked out of those who were the victims of his greed...


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## Enquiring Mind

"I like that dress/dried monkey head/set of matryoshka dolls etc., but I don't want *to pay through the nose* for it/them."


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## morzh

morbo said:


> Jabot??
> http://vasmer.slovaronline.com/Ж/ЖА/3747-ZHABA




Morbo, Vasmer is pretty useless here. 

We are not talking the word etymology.
We are talking idioms.
Vasmer does not explain idioms either - he explains words.

The idiom "жаба душит" stems from "жабо душит", which meant the same, and then folk etymology  turned "жабо" into more familiar "жабa". Which "жаба", angina pectoris or toad, is anyone's guess. 

Again, my post was deleted there (no Russian allowed), so I wrote that:

1) We have to admit that both words and idioms translations are not always possible, and often we either have to look foe the "close enough" translation, or use descriptional translation.
2) I spoke to several natives here now (US East coast); I explained to them the meaning (I want this, but I don't feel like spending the money),   and none of them came up with any idiom for it, except saying that "I feel cheap" is the closest that could describe the situation for them.


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## morbo

By the way, mentioning Stone, Packard made me think of "Scarface": the moment where Montana, having decided that the bank that launders his money is ripping him off, tries to establish a new partnership, which ultimately turns out to be the beginning of his end. A typical example of what the toad can do.


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## morzh

The typical meaning of "жаба задушила" is not what the situation with Scarface is all about. Scarface simply got greedy.

Let's not forget the meaning that most people seem to attribute to this phrase, again:

*- Having second thoughts / lack of desire about paying for an item one really covets.*


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## morbo

morzh said:


> The idiom "жаба душит" stems from "жабо душит", which meant the same, and then folk etymology  turned "жабо" into more familiar "жабa".



"Онъ страдалъ жабой и жаловался на"
"который, будучи ребенкомъ, одно время страдалъ жабой, а потом"
"унтеръ-офицеръ, еле дышалъ, съ трудомъ могъ выговорить слово: его душила Жаба"

As a name for a medical condition, something tells me it predates the rise of popularity of French in Russia.


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## morzh

(answer to teh previous post) - This does not even matter, which "жаба" it is. It can be a matter for a separate topic. It's an interesting discussion but has no bearing on trying to find the best translation for the idiom.

Coming back to it: The problem I see with the whole situation is that in Russian, as I wrote before, but I can repeat, the word "жадность" that describes all of these situations, is universal, and may be used as "скупость", "стяжательство", etc,  and when we go to translation into English we often get the first word that is used in dictionaries for "жадность", which is "greed", and try to use it.
We also use it to explain the meaning of "жаба душит".

In English every situation commands different words when it comes to "жадность". It may be stringy/avaricious/greedy/covetous/cheap/miser and some other words, I think, and they are not necessarily fully (or at all) interchangeable.

"*Being cheap* (about it)"/"*feeling cheap*", to me, is what best describes the idiom's meaning.

- I really want a new Ferrari, but I am being cheap about it. - Я жутко хочу новьиj Феррари, но жаба душит.


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## morbo

morzh said:


> Scarface simply got greedy.



When somebody's unwillingness to spend leads them to face not-that-nice consequences, "жаба задушила" is exactly what can be used to describe that. And greed is a rather befitting reason for such unwillingness.


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## morzh

If that what he did - then yes. (I myself try to avoid examples from movies as not everyone has seen them. Personally I don't watch much, and have not seen "Scarface".).


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## football_

I should note that this expression ("жаба душит") is not known to everyone. As for me, I never heard it before; I'd understand it literally once heard (well, almost literally; I would reconstruct a part of its meaning from a context). Personally, I find this expression very unpleasant (just imagine the situation... no matter what exactly the "жаба" is — an animal or a disease).

Cheers.


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## morzh

I have not up until now met a person (in life or on Internet) who would not know that expression.
You have a dubious honor to be the first 

As for its unpleasantness, well, it became very popular not so long ago, but there are quite a few expressions that are widely popular and are way less pleasant than this one.
This having been said, again, it is beside the point as we are looking for translation, and whether we like the expression or not, is of no concern to the asking party.


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## football_

morzh said:


> I have not up until now met a person (in life or on Internet) who would not know that expression.
> You have a dubious honor to be the first


Hope not the last 


morzh said:


> As for its unpleasantness, well, it became very popular not so long ago, but there are quite a few expressions that are widely popular and are way less pleasant than this one.


Not an excuse of anything.


morzh said:


> This having been said, again, it is beside the point as we are looking for translation, and whether we like the expression or not, is of no concern to the asking party.


... and is a concern to a possible translator, who needs to translate an unpleasant expression in an unpleasant way.


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## sagittaire

Regardless of the origin of the "жаба душит" expression, currently the  majority of the Russian-speaking people understand that it's referring  to the toad (the animal).


 

It's worth mentioning that "жаба душит" does not necessarily take into account the actual price of the desired product (it could be expensive or cheap, little it matters) or the financial state of the person (he could be poor or rich, never mind that), who's the victim of the toad. It usually means plain and simple that the person is  unwilling to part with money (not that the price is high or he doesn't have the money).


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## Kirusha

There's now a continuation of this discussion at:
stinginess idioms (the homicidal toad)


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## Q-cumber

Грудная жаба is an outdated name of stenocardia.


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