# Long texts



## 涼宮

Hello!

Do you have a metaphor, expression or something to refer to long texts colloquially? Or do you have an expression for asking to be brief? In Spanish, at least in my country, we make use of the word ''testamento'' (will/testament) to refer to long texts. 

For example, you are talking to a friend who asks you to explain something to him, then he says '' pero no me escribas un testamento, sé breve'' lit: _but_ _don't write a will, be brief_.

It can be used by everyone, teachers also use it on and off when asking for summaries.


----------



## sakvaka

We *Finns* write novels (_romaani_).
_Teidän ei tarvitse kirjoittaa romaania - vain muutama lause siitä, missä olitte, mitä teitte ja mitä söitte._
You need not write a novel - just a few sentences on where you were, what you did, and what you had for dinner.


----------



## Selyd

Hello!
In Ukrainian: "тільки не пиши мені роман, напиши коротенько" - ''pero no me escribas una novela, sé breve''


----------



## Perseas

In Greek:
"γράφω μυθιστόρημα" --> "to write a novel"
or
"γράφω την ιστορία της ζωής μου" --> "to write the story of my life".


----------



## mataripis

Maging tuwid ang pangungusap/ tuwid na pananalita lang.  ( be straight to the point)


----------



## DearPrudence

In French, colloquially, we can say:
*"un roman" *(literally: _a novel_)
*"une tartine / des tartines"* (literally: _slice of bread / bread (and butter/jam/...) _(yes, the kind you eat! ))


----------



## tFighterPilot

One metaphor that comes in mind in Hebrew is מגילה Megilá "Scroll".


----------



## catlady60

One American English metaphor that comes to mind is: _Quit sounding like a politician and get to the point._


----------



## snoopymanatee

In Turkish, 

we use the word "_destan_" which means "_saga_" for long texts.


----------



## 涼宮

DearPrudence said:


> In French, colloquially, we can say:
> *"un roman" *(literally: _a novel_)
> *"une tartine / des tartines"* (literally: _toast _(yes, the kind you eat! ))



That is weird!  est-ce que vous connaissez la rasion pour laquelle on dit ''une tartine''? Je le trouve bizarre et amusant 



tFighterPilot said:


> One metaphor that comes in mind in Hebrew is מגילה Megilá "Scroll".



Any reason for referring to scrolls? I guess they were important a long time ago, or perhaps they still are 



catlady60 said:


> One American English metaphor that comes to mind is: _Quit sounding like a politician and get to the point._



When one beats around the bush too much, in Spanish we use the verb _cantinflear_. Thanks to the great actor Mario Moreno(cantinflas), from him we got that verb.



snoopymanatee said:


> In Turkish,
> 
> we use the word "_destan_" which means "_saga_" for long texts.



Do you know its origin? Why saga? Televisions?
I see most use ''novel'', that makes Spanish weird


----------



## ThomasK

In Flemish Dutch ;-) : 
*een epistel *(a letter, but mainly referring to the church context, suggesting that the content is not very personal, somewhat boring), but also
*een hele boterham* (a slice of bread and butter, which reminds me of 'tartine', but Lady Prudence ;-) calls it 'toast' - in Dutch it is not; eating boterhammen implies filling one's stomach as in general there is bread, butter and something extra on it, so took some time to digest).

I would not mention _rond de pot draaien _here (*beating around the bush*, literally 'turning around the pot'), because that implies not telling the truth straightforwardly, whereas telling long stories does not necessarily imply wishing not to tell the truth. It just means being *langdradig*, 'long-thready'... ;-)


----------



## ancalimon

The Turkic word sayga and destan (which might be a Persian loan or a Turkic loan derived from the verb "diz" meaning "to put in order, verse" just like the root of "sayga" which is "say" which also means to "put in order, to count and to say") are only used for, well.. sagas.

Laf kalabalığı would be the one we use in Turkish. It means "a crowd of talk that is more than necessary"
We have something similar to "_but_ _don't write a will, be brief_.".  That is 1) "Uzun lafın kısası" : "shorter version of the long empty talk" 2)kısa kes (to cut short) 3) laf salatası (a salad of empty talk ; overabundance of words)


----------



## DearPrudence

涼宮 said:


> That is weird!  est-ce que vous connaissez la rasion pour laquelle on dit ''une tartine''? Je le trouve bizarre et amusant


I don't know and this article doesn't help!
And yes, as Thomas mentions, it is rather "bread (and butter/jam/...)" than "toast", I have corrected it.
But as I see it, it may come from the fact that you make one thing unnecessary long, you _spread_ it on your bread to cover as much as possible?


----------



## ThomasK

Well, you might be right, Lady Prudence: either will be correct. But I think mine is more plausible, because our definition of _boterham _does not imply any extras and in Flandres it used to be a double slice... ;-)

Of course if someone were speaking, we might say (have said, I don't hear it any more) that they are going to Paris through Brussels, which for us is out of the way, a detour... ;-))


----------



## apmoy70

Perseas said:


> In Greek:
> "γράφω μυθιστόρημα" --> "to write a novel"
> or
> "γράφω την ιστορία της ζωής μου" --> "to write the story of my life".


Also in internet slang, «γράφω σεντόνι» /'ɣrafo sen'doni/ --> "to write a sheet"


----------



## ajo fresco

Another way we refer to a very long text, in American English at least, is to call it "War and Peace" (which is known as one of the world's longest novels).


----------



## Outsider

In Portuguese we also say "testamento", (last will and) testament.


----------



## Encolpius

*Hungarian*: litánia [litany]


----------



## bibax

Czech: *román, litánie*;


----------



## Saluton

The Russian name of the 4-volume novel _War and Peace_ by Leo Tolstoy, *"Война и мир"* ("Voyna i mir"), has become a common colloquial name for long texts in Russian. We may also use *роман* ('novel'), *поэма* ('long poem'), or *талмуд* ('Talmud', although this one usually refers to thick books rather than long texts as such).


----------



## ThomasK

Could you explain the different words in the Tolstoy quote?


----------



## ThomasK

ThomasK said:


> In Flemish Dutch ;-) :
> *een epistel *(a letter, but mainly referring to the church context, suggesting that the content is not very personal, somewhat boring), but also
> *een hele boterham* (a slice of bread and butter, which reminds me of 'tartine', but Lady Prudence ;-) calls it 'toast' - in Dutch it is not; eating boterhammen implies filling one's stomach as in general there is bread, butter and something extra on it, so took some time to digest).



There is also *litanie *in Dutch, also religious.


----------



## Saluton

ThomasK said:


> Could you explain the different words in the Tolstoy quote?


"Война и мир" ("Voyna i mir") is not a quote, it's the Russian name of the novel, which means exactly "War and Peace". Names of books, films, pictures, songs etc. are used with quotes in Russian.


----------



## ThomasK

Forgive me, I was too quick !


----------



## Saluton

I forgot another word: *простыня* (prostynya, 'bed sheet'), which usually refers to texts several pages long. All the five metaphors I listed are used ironically, of course.


----------



## ThomasK

[FONT=MS Gothic said:
			
		

> 涼宮[/FONT];12113417]Any reason for referring to scrolls? I guess they were important a long time ago, or perhaps they still are




I think of the Bible scrolls. I see quite some references here to religious things, which might always seem long and dull...


----------



## Nawaq

A long text (or SMS) can be said to be a _pavé_ (cobblestone). Heard it today again...


----------



## ThomasK

That reminds me of a _turf_, a thick book in Dutch. The origin is not so clear. Maybe it refers to a mass of peat, turf referring also to the way it was traded, the quantity... But I think both _pavé_ and _turf_ refer to physical masses, literally heavy things...


----------



## ilocas2

long texts:

Spanish: *textos largos*

Croatian: *dugi/dugački tekstovi*


----------



## Dymn

In colloquial Catalan I've heard _*la Bíblia *_("the Bible"), _*parrafada *_(Spanish _párrafo _"paragraph" + _-ada_), or less commonly *totxo *("brick") and _*textaco *_(Spanish _texto _+ _-aco, _an augmentative suffix). I'm just describing what I hear, because obviously _parrafada _and _textaco _aren't correct at all.


----------



## palomamapola

Diamant7 said:


> I'm just describing what I hear, because obviously _parrafada _and _textaco _aren't correct at all.


@Diamant7, why do you think _parrafada _and _textaco_ wouldn't be correct at all? I've personally never heard _textaco_, but it could work, as you've said, as a suffixed word, even if not officially recorded. _*Parrafada* _is way more common, I'd say, and shows up in our dictionaries (marked as 'colloquial'). Of course, I'm talking about an informal register (the simple fact of thinking a text is too long could be considered as an evidence of not so distinguished level of erudition.  Hence the generally casual expressions > EDIT: I realise my limited English proficiency maybe doesn't allow me to properly point out the hint of irony in this statement, but that was what I genuinely meant!).

Anyway, like in Catalan, there is also the Spanish word *tocho *(usually suffixed *tochaco*) which conveys the same meaning.

In Italian, I think the most common expression would be _scrivere un _*poema*, '_to_ _write a* poem*_' (in its longest acceptation -- just think of an epic poem, for instance). But I've also heard occasional allusions to the novel _*War and peace*_, for its renowned lenght.
_Cos'è, stai scrivendo *Guerra e Pace*? _(informal) '_Are you writing War and Peace_'?


----------



## Sardokan1.0

As said by Paloma, in Italian the most common expression is _scrivere un _*poema*, '_to_ _write a* poem*_'

But in Sardinia the most common expression is not _*poema *_but *"testamento"* (in Italian) which is most likely the 1:1 translation of the equivalent Sardinian expression :

_ite ses iscriende? unu testamentu?_ (what are you writing? a testament?)


----------



## Armas

Perseas said:


> In Greek:
> "γράφω μυθιστόρημα" --> "to write a novel"
> or
> "γράφω την ιστορία της ζωής μου" --> "to write the story of my life".



As soon as I saw the thread title I thought "κατεβατό".


----------



## apmoy70

Armas said:


> As soon as I saw the thread title I thought "κατεβατό".


Yes of course, that too


----------



## ilocas2

bibax said:


> *litánie*



The only correct form is *litanie*, not litánie

pravidla.cz


----------



## Armas

In Finnish I'd say _litania_ is used to describe long enumerations.


----------



## 123xyz

In Macedonian, we say "реферат" (pl. реферати), which literally translates to English "report" (so it would appear, but I'm not good with document-related terminology in any language). Among my friends, I'm famous for writing "реферати" while we text on Facebook.


----------



## Frieder

In German there's the word *Bleiwüste* (lit.: plumb desert)which describes a long text without paragraphs or outer structure. It dates from olden times when books and newspapers were created by type-setters working with metal types.


----------



## SuperXW

In Mandarin, there is an old saying:
老太太的裹脚布——又臭又长
"(The article or report is like) the cloth an old woman used for foot-binding: both smelly and long."
But the slang is regional and old-fashioned.


----------



## Red Arrow

In Dutch, there is also:

Je moet niet je hele leven opschrijven. - You don't need to write down your entire life.

But that sentence probably exists in every language.


----------



## Stan Jan

Polish:
"Nie pisz *elaboratu*, pisz krótko" - Don't write a treatise, put it short.
"Napisał długi *epistoł*" - he wrote a lenghty letter
"*Tomiszcze*", "*Cegła*"(lit. a brick) - a long book


----------



## Awwal12

Saluton said:


> I forgot another word: *простыня* (prostynya, 'bed sheet'), which usually refers to texts several pages long. All the five metaphors I listed are used ironically, of course.


I also encountered *портянка* (portyanka, [pɐɾ'tʲankə] - a footwrap) in the same meaning.


----------



## elroy

Palestinian Arabic: جريدة (jariide), "newspaper" or مجلّد (mujallad), "(thick) volume"


----------



## Encolpius

*English *- *a screed*


----------

