Idioms of the World – Denmark

Welcome back to our “Idioms of the World” series!

Ready to go to Denmark?

Idiom – At have en pind i øret
Meaning – To not listen to someone
English idiom – we do not have a corresponding idiom for this Danish expression, but if we want someone to listen carefully we can say “pin your ears back” which means “listen closely”.

A lot of Danish idioms will sound familiar to us – “not the sharpest knife in the drawer”, for instance. But Danes would “go absolutely cucumber” at you if you were to “have a stick in your ear”. This means to not listen to someone, which can be a very bad thing to do to somebody with a strong Viking ancestry.

Thanks Hotel Club, for sharing these images, and Marcus Oakly for creating them.