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> Without looking afield, it was cut down behind the house. From the folk tale concerning Mesubed Dingal, the inventor of the Palauan kite (see also No. 73). After his wife had been kidnapped, he constructed a kite using feathers from all the birds of Palau and he needed also wood from an Edebsungel tree to fashion the body of the bird-kite. After looking all over Palau and being on the point of giving up, he found the tree he needed behind his own house. The saying may be applied to anyone who does things the hard way, or who goes far afield to find something which is close at hand. |
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> I receive it and you ask for it? A man asks for and receives that which he needs from a second party. A third party, learning of this, asks the first party for it. Used as implied or generally about any unreasonable request |
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> Like the duck of Ngechur, he became industrious after growing old. The idiom is applied to a person who has more or less vegetated into maturity and old age and who, already far past his prime, suddenly tries without success to do all the things he might have done when younger. It may be used with reference to an elder who tries to be a dandy. |
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> Like the cockroach of Ngerdobotar, staying on till it became white. Presumably if a cockroach remains in the darkness for a long time, as one at Ngerdobotar (in Aimeliik) apparently did, it will turn white. Application pertains to a visitor who stays on and on, especially one who is not helpful in the household. Such behavior is not properly human; the person is somehow different, like a white cockroach. |
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> It's as if I've submerged my head into Mekaeb (the channel between Peleliu and Agaur). A term to describe a dish that is really salty. |
