Funny expressions: "Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda."

Question

Which means: no dress can make an ugly woman beautiful.

Which is a matter of opinion (wink, wink).

Anyway, I have read about this lipstick and pigs on the Obama and Mc Cain campaign. I only just listened to it on YouTube.

In the Spanish papers, this phrase was compared to the above sentence...but I am wondering which sentence they exactly meant. Obviously, Obama sort of "adapted" the saying.

I would also like to add, that the sentence used in Spain is rather offensive if said to a woman directly. It certainly sounds even worse using instead of monkey pig

Is the above saying understood in other countries likewe use it in Spain'

Answer 1

so seda=fine clothing, rather than specifically the material silk

Answer 2

mutton dressed as lamb... is that Brittish?

tad said:

Heidita said:

You can dress up a dog [or chicken, or whatever the speaker wants to say], but it's still a dog.You can put a tuxedo on a monkey, but it's still a monkey.You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.Mutton dressed as lamb!I have a nice collection now.

Heidita, although along the same lines, the 'Mutton dressed as lamb' saying is specifically for an older person (usually a woman) that dresses in clothes (and make-up) really only suitable for a younger person

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Answer 3

Casimiro/ Kashmir said:

mutton dressed as lamb... is that Brittish'.

Yes, or at least it is a common expression here

Answer 4

Heidita said:

Natasha and James: as you can see from my original post, I thought the saying was actually "adapted". I did not think, and this is surely also thought by others who do not know the saying well, that in the original saying there was no lipstick involved.I am stunned.

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For the record, here's what Obama actually said (from mediamatters.org)

OBAMA: Let's just list this for a second. John McCain says he's about change, too. Except -- and so I guess his whole angle is, "Watch out, George Bush, except for economic policy, health-care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics. We're really gonna shake things up in Washington." That's not change. That's just calling some -- the same thing, something different. But you know, you can -- you know, you can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig.

Answer 5

its very quaint. i heard the word mutton used before wheni was in cambridge and they werent talking about food. LOL.

tad said:

Casimiro/ Kashmir said:

mutton dressed as lamb... is that Brittish'.

Yes, or at least it is a common expression here

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Answer 6

I myself would love to see someone apply lipstick to a pig...it's hard enough to catch one!

Answer 7

Heidita said:

Natasha and James: as you can see from my original post, I thought the saying was actually "adapted". I did not think, and this is surely also thought by others who do not know the saying well, that in the original saying there was no lipstick involved. I am stunned.

I'm not sure what you mean. The original saying does involve lipstick. What I meant was that it is not necessarily used to refer to a woman. It could be a man, a child, an object, or an action.

Man 1: I'm selling my car.
Man 2: That old piece of junk?
Man 1: Well, I'm getting it painted.
Man 2: You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.

The idea is that applying lipstick makes the wearer more beautiful, but doesn't change the basic nature of the wearer.

Answer 8

My feeling is that Obama was not referring to Palin, it was just an unfortunate choice at the time, therefore giving the opposing side something to cause a big brouhaha. McCain has used the same saying himself.
We have so many problems, I wish they would stick to those instead of the stupid stuff.

Answer 9

motley said:

My feeling is that Obama was not referring to Palin, it was just an unfortunate choice at the time, therefore giving the opposing side something to cause a big brouhaha. McCain has used the same saying himself.We have so many problems, I wish they would stick to those instead of the stupid stuff.

a big brouhaha

Nice expression, Motley.

Answer 10

Actually, Obama has said that, if he had been making a comment on Palin, that she would not be the pig, but the lipstick. He was using a fairly common american saying to make a comment on McCain's policies(which woul be the pig) I'm not even sure where the pibull comes into it

Heidita said:

James Santiago said:

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Answer 11

The expression would translate into: The monkey even dressed in silk is still a monkey. In Dominican Republic we use the expression all the time, mostly it's used to say that an ugly person even in the cutest garment will still be ugly. In some other ocassions it's used to say that you will still be the same no matter what you do which I consider a prejudice. It basically implies that even though we use clothes we still belong to the animal kingdom but in some other characteristics people do change.

Another particular fact is that the phrase says mona which is the word for the female monkey (in case you are wondering the word for the male monkey is mono). In my perspective, is an stereotype because it implies that women are the only ones who go around pretending. Maybe it's said because women put on a big effort to change their natural image by using make-up and stuff but it still sounds a little insulting. Here's a nice quote that is pretty similar to this one, from The Rogue by Claire Delacroix “You can gild a lily and make it finer than it was, but a gilded stick is yet a stick."