Meaning:
Lit: “cow that moos a lot gives little milk”. Used to describe a person, an enterprise or a company who make a lot of noise, attract interest, but in the end don’t achieve their stated goals and produce little or no real results.
Category: Sayings
Operacja się udała, pacjent zmarł
Meaning:
Lit. “the operation was successful, the patient died”. This is an extremely sarcastic phrase you bring up if someone claims to have completed their task while not achieving their main goal. Or causing lots of damage that nullifies their apparent success. Somewhat related to “Pyrrhic victory”.
Zjeść razem beczkę soli
Meaning:
Lit. “to have eaten a barrel of salt together”. To know someone very well, being very good friends and having experienced ups and downs together over many years. Such a statement vouches for a person in a way that is really hard to argue with.
Rodzić się na kamieniu
Meaning:
Lit. “to be born on a stone”. Which only makes sense as a general statement about a phenomenon in a specific country/region/social class/business environment. You use it to point that a specific type of people or ideas or companies spawn there very often and that it is a positive trend.
Buta nie zjesz
Meaning:
Lit. “can’t eat a shoe (now can you?)”. It’s meant as a confirmation that a problem simply cannot be solved and should be left ad acta, not to waste time or effort in vain.