[General] Eat the calf in the cow's belly

[Silverobama]

Hi teachers.

I wonder if you've heard of this proverb "Eat the calf in the cow's belly". Is it natural to your ears. I googled last time when I had a VPN and I found many results but I think it's translation from Chinese. Is it natural to your ears and how to use it if it's natural?

Here's the a link to its definition. It means "too ready to anticipate".

I think it's not natural in English at all.

 

[emsr2d2]

I can't think of anything but I don't really understand your definition. "too ready to anticipate" means nothing. From the literal translation of the original, it sounds like it might mean "too excited to wait". Does that sound right?

 

[Skrej]

I was looking at a few other entries in that text, and then realized it sounded very old-fashioned. Sure enough, the first page says this dictionary of idioms was published in 1891! In the preface, the author states it's from a collection of works even earlier in 1888.

Many of these idiomatic phrases have long since passed out of the common vernacular. I would not recommend using this text, aside from an interesting look into archaic English. After nearly a century and a half, it's certainly an interesting historical document, but has lost much of its value as a tool for modern spoken English.

It also bills itself as something of a "modern" (at the time of printing) look into current (circa turn of the century) slang, and we know how quickly slang changes - sometimes within the space of just a few years.