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> Like the crotch of an aristocratic woman. Women of the wealthy elite in old Palau would be tattooed up the entire leg and about the thighs and hips. Reference is to the black color of such tattooing and the phrase may be applied to any dark occasion, but usually to dark clouds. |
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> Like the bathing of the terriid. The terriid, a bird, takes a quick splash bath, hardly a complete bathing. The idiom applies to a ducking one may get when a boat swamps, or to a wetting with spray. More generally, it is applied to a task done with haste rather than with care. It can be applied also to a brief acquaintance. |
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> You're just like a cat washing yourself. i.e., you have to do everything yourself because your relatives are neglecting their obligations to you. |
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> A male child, though small, is yet like a small barracuda that braces against the flowing stream. The small barracuda (mersaod, a small ai) can be seen bracing, without apparent motion, against the stream, usually where fresh water flows into the lagoon, or where tide water runs off the reef, until suddenly it dashes into the stream to grab a small fish. Then it retreats once more to its place of watchfulness. This watchful, quiet, reserved, almost crafty approach to life is much admired, and parents will encourage their male children with this saying. |
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> Like kaldos, putting medicine on a well place, rather than the injury. Kaldos is a medical treatment, said by some to have been learned from the Germans, in which medicine is applied to a parallel member of an injured part in a way that is supposed to transfer pain to an uninjured place. The idiom is applied to a decision or action that completely misses the point or problem. |
