I've encountered this saying multiple times in English, but even though I'm a native Russian speaker, I can't find an exact equivalent of this saying in Russian.
Perhaps someone here knows?
-
1Could you please expand the meaning of this saying? Thank you!– Quassnoi ♦Commented Jul 22, 2023 at 16:00
-
Is it a pun on "stupid is as stupid does"?– Igor GCommented Jul 22, 2023 at 23:34
-
1@IgorG: the original one is "handsome is as handsome does", and the variant with "stupid" is modeled after it. There are a lot of expressions using this pattern, but how it translates to "perfect", that I don't know. Нормально делай — нормально будет maybe– Quassnoi ♦Commented Jul 23, 2023 at 1:10
-
1I'm a native English speaker and I have no idea what this means, or more specifically, how to apply it. If it's meant to encourage the listener to be "perfect", I'm hard put to imagine recommending such arrogance to anyone. Or is it a sarcastic reproach for someone striving or claiming to be perfect? I can't make heads or tails of it in English, to say nothing of Russian.– CocoPopCommented Jul 25, 2023 at 16:11
-
@CocoPop, does the following interpretation seem viable: "Perfect [one] is, because perfect [things he] does"? I can see such interpretation working with negative adjectives like "Глуп я есмь ибо глупости творю", but any positive adjective makes it sound like bragging or maybe condescending, which isn't typical style of a common saying or a proverb, but still does it make some sense?– Igor GCommented Jul 26, 2023 at 11:57
|
Show 2 more comments
1 Answer
По плодам их узнаете их and a whole family of similar idioms, such as человека дела красят, including postmodern memes (не губы красят женщину, а женщина красит губы)
-
1