# Food-related metaphors for money



## jucami

Hi! I recently came across the Dutch expression "goede boterham verdienen" in Flanders - literally to earn one's sandwich, figuratively to earn a living. I thought about the English expressions "breadwinner" and "bring home the bacon." It made me wonder: what food metaphors do you use in your languages to talk about money and making a living?


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## Yendred

For French:
_blé (wheat)
oseille (sorrel)

fric _is special. It's one of the most common French slang for money, but almost nobody knows that it's a shortcut for _fricandeau_, an old word for _ragoût _(_stew_).

More outdated:
_radis (radish)
avoine (oat)
artiche (_from _artichaut = artichoke)
patate (~ 1500 euros, formerly 10000 French francs), _slang for _pomme de terre _(_potato_)

In other expressions:
_faire du blé _(lit. _to make wheat_) _= to earn money_

Now there are many more slang words that are not food-related:
_flouze _(borrowed from Arabic)_, t(h)une, pognon, rond, pèze (_from Spanish _peseta), balles, briques, ..._


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## Armas

Finnish:

_ansaita leipänsä_ "to earn one's bread"
_saada voita leivän päälle_ "to get butter on bread" means to make extra money

_hillo_ "jam" is a slang word for money


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## sound shift

British/Australian: "What do you do for _a crust_?" = "What do you do for a living?"


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## Yendred

Armas said:


> _saada voita leivän päälle_ "to get butter on bread" means to make extra money


In French:
_mettre du beurre dans les épinards_ (lit. _to put butter on the spinaches_) = to earn more money than expected


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## apmoy70

Greek:

-*«Αυτή η δουλειά έχει πολύ ψωμί»* [a.ˈft̠i.i.ðu.ˈʎa.ˈe̞.çi.po̞ˈli.p͡s̠o̞.ˈmi] --> _this job has alot of bread_ (i.e. potential profit job)
-*«Tιμώ το ψωμί που τρώω»* [t̠i.ˈmo̞.ˌt̠o̞.p͡s̠o̞.ˈmi.pu.ˈt̠ro̞.o̞] --> _to honour the bread one eats_ (i.e one must respect their job)
-*«Για ένα κομμάτι ψωμί»* [ʝa.ˈe̞na.ko̞.ˈma.t̠i.p͡s̠o̞.mi] --> _for a piece of bread_ (it's said when somethinɡ is bouɡht unexpectedly cheap).

For making one's living we say *«βάζω ψωμί στο τραπέζι»* [ˈva.z̠o̞.p͡s̠o̞.ˈmi.s̠t̠o̞.t̠ra.ˈpe̞.z̠i] - - > _to put bread on the table_

Edit: Apologies for my late editing, I added the metaphor for making one's living


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## Penyafort

In Catalan, for "making one's living", _bread _can be used, but for some reason _carobs _are the common one.

*guanyar-se les garrofes* 'to earn one's carobs'​*guanyar-se el pa* 'to earn one's bread'​


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## Welsh_Sion

'*Bread*' seems quite universal for 'making one's living':

*Cymraeg/Welsh*

*ennill eich crystyn* - 'earn your crust' 
*ennill eich bara* - 'earn your bread' 
*ennill eich torth* - 'earn your loaf'
*bara menyn* - 'bread (and) butter'

And indirectly, as in losing money as a result of an action:

*cicio'r dorth* - Lit. 'kicking the loaf', i.e. acting rashly and so losing one's job (and therefore one's source of income)

And don't forget in English there's the slang term of '*dough*'.


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## jucami

Indeed, a lot of bread on tables around the world!


sound shift said:


> British/Australian: "What do you do for _a crust_?" = "What do you do for a living?"


Interesting, is this rhyming slang? Or just another version of the semi-universal bread?


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## sound shift

The latter, I think.


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## סייבר־שד

Yendred said:


> In French:
> _mettre du beurre dans les épinards_ (lit. _to put butter on the spinaches_) = to earn more money than expected


Don't forget _faire son beurre _(lit. _to make one's butter) _= to become rich.


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## Ghabi

Money is also known as "water" in Cantonese. Don't know why. But it's used in all kinds of expressions, including financial ones.

For example, when they say "the bank is flooded", that means "the bank has too much money" (i.e. excess deposits). When they say "the government will pump water to save it", that means "the government will bail it out".

In everyday life, "I've got no water" means "I'm broke".


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## סייבר־שד

Ghabi said:


> Money is also known as "water" in Cantonese. Don't know why.


As someone living in a city which may run out of water in a few years, and is already facing serious shortage problems, equating money to water seems to me to make _a lot _of sense, actually.


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## jucami

Ghabi said:


> Money is also known as "water" in Cantonese. Don't know why. But it's used in all kinds of expressions, including financial ones.
> 
> For example, when they say "the bank is flooded", that means "the bank has too much money" (i.e. excess deposits). When they say "the government will pump water to save it", that means "the government will bail it out".
> 
> In everyday life, "I've got no water" means "I'm broke".


It's interesting to hear what images are used in places where bread is not such a culinary staple!


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## alfaalfa

Ciao,
in Italian to earn one's bread:
_guadagnarsi il pane _(bread)_/la pagnotta _(loaf)_/la stozza _(very big and over-filled sandwich: reg)

_Grano_ (wheat)> money

_Foraggiare _(to forage) > to bribe



Penyafort said:


> *guanyar-se les garrofes* 'to earn one's carobs'


Maybe something related to the carats?

So many vegetables in French


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## Penyafort

Welsh_Sion said:


> '*Bread*' seems quite universal for 'making one's living':



I'd say it's rather Western. Bread is not so typical in East Asia, where some languages even use the Portuguese word for it: Japanese _pan_, Korean _ppang_, Sinhalese _paan_, Thai _bpang_.

And usually when a metaphor is common in the West, it has to do with the Bible. I'd say the association is due to the sentence in the Genesis: _By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread._


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## Yendred

Penyafort said:


> usually when a metaphor is common in the West, it has to do with the Bible.



Agree but in French, I don't think _bread _directly means _money_.
We have the expression "_gagner son pain quotidien_", which is quite universal (maybe from the Bible), but it's not a metaphor with _money_. It concretely means _daily bread (food)_.


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## apmoy70

When referring to celebrities or rich people, we use a different metaphor for money, instead of _bread_ for the hoi polloi, we use:

*«Βάζω παντεσπάνι στο τραπέζι»* [ˈva.z̠o̞.paŋ.d̠e̞s̠.ˈpa.ni.ˌs̠t̠o̞.t̠ra.ˈpe.z̠i] --> _to put (provide) pandispaɡna on the table_ (as a symbol of affluence)


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## alfaalfa

Yendred said:


> It concretely means _daily bread (food)_.


Maybe after the _Pater Noster _prayer :
_ Panem nostrum cotidiánum da nobis hódie_
Give us this day, our daily bread


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## jucami

Yendred said:


> Agree but in French, I don't think _bread _directly means _money_.
> We have the expression "_gagner son pain quotidien_", which is quite universal (maybe from the Bible), but it's not a metaphor with _money_. It concretely means _daily bread (food)_.


My original question was about food-related metaphors for money and* earning a living *in general, so this expression certainly also fits under that umbrella. 



Penyafort said:


> *guanyar-se les garrofes* 'to earn one's carobs'​​


Have to admit I didn't know what carobs were. Are these commonly eaten in your region?


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## Yendred

apmoy70 said:


> *«Βάζω παντεσπάνι στο τραπέζι»* [ˈva.z̠o̞.paŋ.d̠e̞s̠.ˈpa.ni.ˌs̠t̠o̞.t̠ra.ˈpe.z̠i] --> _to put (provide) pandispaɡna on the table_ (as a symbol of affluence)


This makes me think of the French expression "_se partager le gâteau_" (lit. _to share the cake_), used when a group of people earns money and they have to divide it between them.


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## jucami

Yendred said:


> This makes me think of the French expression "_se partager le gâteau_" (lit. _to share the cake_), used when a group of people earns money and they have to divide it between them.


Similarly in English we can refer to "a piece of the pie" to refer to money or any other kind of (literal or figurative) wealth or asset.


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## Penyafort

alfaalfa said:


> Maybe something related to the carats?


To the carats? No, the carobs are legumes that have come a long time from Mesopotamian times.

Akkadian: _hharuubu_
> Aramaic: _hharruubaa_
>> Arabic: _(al) kharruuba_
>>> Catalan: _garrova, *garrofa*_
>>> Spanish: _algarroba_
>>> Portuguese: _algaroba, alfarroba_
>>> Middle French: _carobe_
>>>> English: _*carob*_
>>>> French: _caroube_
​I suspect that the expression in Catalan comes from the fact that carobs have traditionally been important to feed animals, and draught animals had to work hard 'to eat their carobs'. Then by figurated transposition it'd be applied to people.


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## jucami

Penyafort said:


> To the carats? No, the carobs are legumes that have come a long time from Mesopotamian times.


According to wikipedia: 
The _carat_, a unit of mass for gemstones, and a measurement of purity for gold, takes its name from the Greek word for a carob seed, _keration_, via the Arabic word, _qīrāṭ_.

Sounds like a pretty big promotion from animal feed!


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## Yendred

jucami said:


> Have to admit I didn't know what carobs were. Are these commonly eaten in your region?


It's a typical product of the West Mediterranean Basin, but today it's essentially used as a food additive (thickening agent) or other industrial uses (paper).


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## alfaalfa

Yendred said:


> This makes me think of the French expression "_se partager le gâteau_" (lit. _to share the cake_), used when a group of people earns money and they have to divide it between them.


Same in Italian:
_Dividersi/spartirsi la torta._


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## Penyafort

jucami said:


> Have to admit I didn't know what carobs were. Are these commonly eaten in your region?


They're associated with food for animals, but I know they've been eaten in times of shortage. There's also carob flour, carob cream, and the like.



jucami said:


> The _carat_, a unit of mass for gemstones, and a measurement of purity for gold, takes its name from the Greek word for a carob seed, _keration_, via the Arabic word, _qīrāṭ_.


Frankly, I'd have never related both!  So "little horn" was a word used for the carob in Greek, who would have thought!


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## apmoy70

Penyafort said:


> They're associated with food for animals, but I know they've been eaten in times of shortage. There's also carob flour, carob cream, and the like....


Not only food for animals, I remember as a kid, with my friends, on a Greek island in the summer, picking carobs, from the carob trees that grew freely on the side of the road path and eating them...very sweet with a distinct aroma (an acquired delicacy). We call it *«χαρούπι»* [xa.ˈɾu.pi] (neut.) < Ottoman Turkish خروب (harub) < Arabic خرّوب (χarrūb).
Although we use the Ottoman name for it in the vernacular, there are numerous places named after it, that use its ancient name as a toponymic, I know of *«Kερατέα»* [ce̞.ɾa.ˈt̠e̞.a] (fem.), a place not far from where I live, named after the carob tree (apologies for the OT)


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## alfaalfa

apmoy70 said:


> Not only food for animals, I remember as a kid, with my friends, on a Greek island in the summer, picking carobs, from the carob trees that grew freely on the side of the road path and eating them.


The same in the Southern Italy (the poors' chocolate)



Penyafort said:


> Frankly, I'd have never related both!


To be honest this was my only thought


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## Zareza

Romanian

*- a fi în pâine *(sau *a mânca pâine*) =* to be in bread*_ (or *to eat bread*)_ = to have a job

*- a pune / a băga în pâine pe cineva *=* to put someone in the bread* = to give (someone) a job

*- a scoate /a da afară din pâine* = *to take out*_* / throw out* _*of the bread* = to put someone out of work

*- a mânca o pâine albă* =* to eat white bread* = to have a good financial situation, to get along well

*- money* = (_slang_) *boabe* (grains), *cașcaval* (hard cheese), *coajă* (crust), *lapți* (milt), *lămâi *(lemons), *mălai* (corn), *ovăz *(oats), *pleavă *(chaff), *zarzavat* vegetables


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## Penyafort

Yendred said:


> For French:
> _blé (wheat)_



Apparently cereals, the basis of food, are often seen as equivalent to money.

Funnily enough, we have never used _blat _in Catalan for money, but _*panís *_"corn" (which is also called _blat de moro_, but not with the sense of money).

There's also _*pasta *_"dough", which is probably just a calque from Spanish.


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## apmoy70

Do you happen to use _seeds_ as a metaphor for change or a small amount of money?
We use it when referring to a large amount of money that someone (legitimately or illegitimately) acquired, and left the *«σπόρια»* [ˈs̠po̞r.ʝa] (neut. nom pl.) i.e. the _seeds, left-over_ for the bouncer or the driver < colloquial neut. *«σπορί»* [s̠po̞ˈɾi] (nom. sinɡ.) < ByzGr *«σπορί(ο)ν» sporí(o)n*, neuter diminutive of the Classical masc. *«σπόρος» spórŏs*.


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## AutumnOwl

Swedish: 
Levebröd / tjäna sitt levebröd - living bread /earn one's living bread
Deg - dough, meaning money
Bagis, bagare - baker, meaning one Swedish crown (100 öre makes 1 crown)
Fläsk - pork, meaning money
Honung - honey, a little extra money to spend
Ha det fett - have it fat/grease, being rich
Korvöre - sausage penny (smallest monetary unit), usually in "har inte ett korvöre" - haven't even a sausage penny
Kaka, lax, lök - cake, salmon, onion, meaning 1,000 Swedish crowns
Kanin - rabbit, meaning one million Swedish crowns

The most common slang word for money is "stålar" steels (from stål meaning steel), although among young people I guess 'cash' is taking over.


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## Welsh_Sion

Can we add English *'nest egg'* to this list?


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## Yendred

apmoy70 said:


> *«Για ένα κομμάτι ψωμί»* [ʝa.ˈe̞na.ko̞.ˈma.t̠i.p͡s̠o̞.mi] --> _for a piece of bread_ (it's said when somethinɡ is bouɡht unexpectedly cheap)


Similar in French:
_pour une bouchée de pain _(lit. _for a bite of bread)_


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## Welsh_Sion

You sort of reminded me of examples of _little_ money, @Yendred.

How about *'crumbs', 'scraps', 'chicken feed' *in English? (I think you do the same with *'miettes' *in FRA as well ...)


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## Yendred

Welsh_Sion said:


> I think you do the same with *'miettes' *in FRA as well ...


_miettes (crumbs)_ can be used metaphorically, but not exclusively for money.
For example:
Cluny : une abbaye gigantesque dont il ne reste que des miettes


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## hx1997

In Mandarin, we have 混口饭吃 (lit. get a bite of *meal* to eat). (Pretty unimaginative  )


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## Terio

Yendred said:


> For French:
> _blé (wheat)
> oseille (sorrel)
> 
> fric _is special. It's one of the most common French slang for money, but almost nobody knows that it's a shortcut for _fricandeau_, an old word for _ragoût _(_stew_).
> 
> More outdated:
> _radis (radish)
> avoine (oat)
> artiche (_from _artichaut = artichoke)
> patate (~ 1500 euros, formerly 10000 French francs), _slang for _pomme de terre _(_potato_)
> 
> In other expressions:
> _faire du blé _(lit. _to make wheat_) _= to earn money_
> 
> Now there are many more slang words that are not food-related:
> _flouze _(borrowed from Arabic)_, t(h)une, pognon, rond, pèze (_from Spanish _peseta), balles, briques, ..._


In Québec : foin (hay). It's food for animals, but it is food.


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## Yendred

Terio said:


> In Québec : foin (hay)


Interesting! In France, "_du foin_" is not money, it's noise/din.


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