the tamtam does its rounds?...

[karinontour]

In Dutch we have a saying that "the tamtam does its rounds" when a rumour has been passed on and a lot of people have heard the news. This can either be in a negative as well as positive contest [tamtam refers to the hitting of a drum, like in ancient tribes].
Is there an English equivalent to this saying?
Thanks

[BobK]

In Dutch we have a saying that "the tamtam does its rounds" when a rumour has been passed on and a lot of people have heard the news. This can either be in a negative as well as positive contest [tamtam refers to the hitting of a drum, like in ancient tribes].
Is there an English equivalent to this saying?
Thanks

There's a specific one, if you know who heard it: 'X heard it on the grapevine'. Of the general process there's a choice. 'The rumour mill', 'the jungle drums' ... I think there may be others.... Someone

b

[Judge Brybe]

Someone
b

How about simply 'doing the rounds' (the joke's doing the rounds)? Talk of the town? Talking point?
JB
I like the 'mill'-expression.

[BobK]

Just remembered another: 'the jungle telegraph'.

b

[Mehrgan]

Just remembered another: 'the jungle telegraph'.

b

Hi,
How could they be used? Just as a whole phrase?

[BobK]

Hi,
How could they be used? Just as a whole phrase?

A further memory: I got it slightly wrong yesterday - 'jungle drums' but 'bush telegraph'.

'I heard it on the bush telegraph.'

(This use of 'bush' - meaning, roughly, 'not very dense jungle' - is associated with parts of Australia and parts of Africa; I'm not sure about other continents. In the UK, people don't talk about local landscape as 'the bush' - except in a jocular way. Example: 'If I don't do something about the garden at the weekend, we'll be fighting our way through the bush with machetes!')

b