Hey there - so last level I stumbled upon 二枚舌 (にまいじた) and because I was trying to be fast (gotta go fast) I just memorised the meaning and carried on.
Now that it’s popped back in my reviews, I realised I’m actually not sure what a “forked tongue” is here.
I’m not a native speaker of English, so I would appreciate some help.
The example sentence (“Viet used his forked tongue to cheat Koichi”) seems to suggest someone with a forked tongue is a cheater. Is that it?
A “forked tongue” to me sounds like someone who is a hypocrite, two-faced, or abusive maybe. Any native English speakers mind sharing their thoughts? How often/in what circumstances would you use this in English?
I guess a snake has a forked tongue and there’re often considered to be nasty things… probably stemming from the garden of eden and the jerk in the Jungle Book lol.
Yonder is a great word. No one other word perfectly expresses the concept of the imminently useful 向こう. the fact that most people do not typically use it makes it all the more attractive to throw around. It always gets a good laugh.
[to continue the Futurama image refs] or the devil. he’s supposed to have a forked tongue as well (obviously inspired by snakes since the devil was the snake in the garden)
yonder is common in older literature so I definitely read it early in life…aaaand being from southern US i hear it more than you’d imagine. ‘What’s over yonder?’ ‘those people over yonder still?’
That’s lovely! I mean, yeah, as an English Lit graduate I definitely see yonder in texts all the time, but I’ve never heard it out loud. It’s pretty cool there’s people still using it hahah
heard more times than i’d like to admit: ‘Hey y’all been over yonder to dat there wally-world? We’re fixin ta go.’ (for those that might not make the connection, ‘wally-world’ is country folk for walmart lol.
Forked tongues are something that snakes (usually) have.
Also, in the beginning, Satan snuck up to Eve in the form of a snake, getting her to eat the fruit (and in turn Adam), which cast them both out of the Garden of Eden.
(Whether you believe in the Bible or not, most English-speaking people know this story, or think of Satan as having a forked tongue.)
So you also see forked tongues on demons and monsters, and you would say liars (because Satan is the king of lies) also have forked tongues.
I’ve never heard about a cheater having a forked tongue, though. That’s different.
Another English thing about liars: “Liar, liar, pants-on-fire!” is a common kid’s insult/phrase to other kids who lie, so you might also hear about someone’s “pants being on fire” or “getting a little hot”… and that also has to do with lying.
Oh yeah! Some people do it to themselves, @ApathyAunt.
Also related, Gene Simmons from KISS cut the little muscle that keeps your tongue in your mouth so that he can get his way outside his mouth, really long.
Yonder is also used in the official song of the U.S. Air Force…Off we go, into the wild blue yonder…etc. Rhymes with the word thunder later in the song.
(yonder, anyone?)
