English Lesson
Continuing with phraseologies involving parts of the body, today we look at some nominal collocations (noun + noun) with ears.
Interestingly, among the first 10 noun collocates in the COCA corpus (www.americancorpus.org), 7 are names of animals. The list includes 11 collocates because the last three have the same number of occurrences in the corpus.
1 | Rabbit | 105 | |||
2 | Mouse | 27 | |||
3 | Elephant | 26 | |||
4 | Bunny | 20 | |||
5 | Jug | 19 | |||
6 | Tree | 15 | |||
7 | Donkey | 10 | |||
8 | Pig | 10 | |||
9 | Dog | 9 | |||
10 | Corn | 9 | 11 | Cauliflower | 9 |
Let’s take a look at a few of them.
Rabbit ears
Of course they could be used literally to refer to the ears of a rabbit. However, look at the examples below:
- An old 13 inch TV, with rabbit ears, plays in a corner.
- Rabbit ears and some older antennas can’t receive high frequency digital TV transmissions.
Have you ever seen one of these?
But it may have another meaning too:
- Who gave rabbit ears to Spain’s foreign minister in an official photo in 2002, and told earthquake survivors in May to view the experience as a camping weekend?
- Ashton Kutcher sits for a photo. Justin Bieber stands behind him, raising two fingers behind Kutcher’s head. # ” What are you doing? I feel you’re doing something behind my back,” Kutcher says. “Are you giving me rabbit ears and I’m not knowing it?”
Notice , however, that in this case the expression is accompanied by the verb to give.
Now, as bunny can be a synonym for rabbit, bunny ears can be used with the same meanings:
- Because next year, when TV turns digital, those bunny ears won’t work on your grandfather’s set no matter where you hold them.
- Rep. Bill Sali, an Idaho Republican, drew unwelcome headlines when he and his staffers tried to disrupt his rival’s campaign spokesman during a TV interview by making faces and giving him “bunny ears.”
But in Portuguese, the expression is quite different:
- Primeiro-ministro britânico ganha ‘chifrinho’ em foto com seleção
David Cameron acabou ganhando um chifre durante a foto na Downing Street (Foto: Reuters)
Mouse ears
This seems to be quite straightforward:
- Yes, there was the occasional man wearing Minnie Mouse ears or a Fairy Princess hat.
- But Disney isn’t just about mouse ears anymore. It’s about book publishing, cable TV and pro sports teams.
Elephant ears
These are easy to guess:
- Like elephant ears or bamboo, they spread like crazy!
- Elephant ears, a catchall name for three big-leafed tropicals — colocasia, alocasia and xanthosoma.
Here is a picture that might help to understand why they got:
In Portuguese they are also called orelhas de elefante.
Jug ears
The picture below might give you an idea why they are called jug ears:
Milk jug
- Mark is a little boy with jug ears and a crew cut, staring at the camera.
- With his broad freckled face, jug ears, and mop of carroty hair, he looked sweet, innocent, kind.
They are also known as stick-out ears, but jug ears seem to be more common as they occur 19 times in the COCA corpus as opposed to only six occurrences of stick-out ears.
The Portuguese equivalent makes reference not to a jug but to a different object :
- Otoplastia: cirurgia plástica corrige orelhas de abano.
Donkey ears
We all know that story, don’t we?
- … a story her grandmother told her about a little boy who was born with donkey ears.
- A set was built to represent Terra Magica, a country fair where runaway boys could get into all sorts of mischief but were then punished by being turned into donkeys (although in this version Pinocchio only sprouts donkey ears).
Tree ears
We’re back to food:
- Dried tree ears: Also called wood ears, cloud ears and black fungus, these mushrooms have a crunchy, rubbery texture when reconstituted.
- Soak the tree ears in warm water to cover until they are soft, about 20 minutes.
Cauliflower ears
Now here is a really strange one – at least I thought so until I saw the pictures:
- He just kept telling me stories about punch drunk fighters with cauliflower ears.
- They’re still the ones stumbling around with the cauliflower ears, the mashed, pulpy noses, the black eyes and the fractured jaws.
And it’s the same in Portuguese:
- ‘Orelha de couve-flor’ tem conserto com cirurgia, mas não fica como era antes.
- Conhecida na medicina como hematoma auricular, tem o nome popular de orelha de couve-flor e trata-se de um hematoma causado no pericôndrio (uma camada de tecido conjuntivo que fica entre a pele e a cartilagem da orelha) devido ao constante atrito que a orelha sofre durante os treinos, gerando uma inflamação.
Corn ears
Food again!
- It is easiest to shell (remove kernels) from corn ears as grain is needed.
- In modern times the pre-Columbian stubbly corn ears have been genetically modified to produce hundreds of varieties of popcorn.
These can also be called ears of corn. In fact they feature 94 occurrences in the COCA.
- Brian brings a buttered ear of corn to his mouth and pauses.
In Portuguese we call them espigas de milho, no relation at all with ears:
- E tirou do saco meia dúzia de espigas de milho, que o animal devorou.
That’s it for this month, folks! Hope you enjoyed your Carnival!
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Stella E. O. Tagnin professora associada do Departamento de Letras Modernas, FFLCH, da USP. Embora aposentada, continua orientando em nível de pós-graduação nas áreas de Tradução, Terminologia, Ensino e Aprendizagem, sempre com base na Lingüística de Corpus. É coordenadora do Projeto CoMET.
Interessante como as culturas são diferentes. O que para nós no Brasil é "chifrinho", com uma ideia de maldade, em inglês fica mais pueril, com "rabbit" ou "bunny ears". Graças a uma plástica, há muito tempo, me livrei das minhas "jug ears". hahahaha