"Waiting for the other shoe to drop?"
How would you translate the English expression: "Waiting for the other shoe to drop?" Gracias por ayudarme!!!
5 Answers
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Etymology
A common experience of tenement living in apartment-style housing in New York City, and other large cities, during the manufacturing boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Apartments were built, similar in design, with the bedrooms located directly above and underneath one another. Thus, it was normal to hear a neighbor removing their shoes in the apartment above. As one shoe made a sound hitting the floor, the expectation for the other shoe to make a similar disturbance was created.
wait for the other shoe to drop Await a seemingly inevitable event, as in Now that she has a good enough job to leave her husband, we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop . This expression alludes to a person awakened by a neighbor who loudly dropped one shoe on the floor and is waiting for the second shoe to be dropped. [Early 1900s]
Waiting for the other shoe to drop is very popular in the US. It's like something bad has happened and you are sure that it is going to bring about something equally bad or worse.
Here's one expression that is heard in Spanish that expresses a similar idea.
" estar en espera que caiga la espada de Damocles"
Here's another one--kind of funny.
"estar con la mosca detrás de la oreja"
Here's one with a reference to the Cinderella story:
" No sabes a qué hora la carroza se convertirá en calabaza."
Then again there is a literal translation which would be understood by most bilinguals (Spanish-and US English.)
"Nos sentamos y esperamos a que caiga el otro zapato, "
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Then the penny dropped ? ? Por fin cayó en la cuenta
A simple Google search shows that waiting for the other shoe to drop is a figurative expression meaning to wait for the inevitable next step or the final conclusion.
Now, it's really hard to provide an idiomatic way of saying this in Spanish without further context.
Another interpretation I found says that it's to wait for something bad to happen, but the interesting thing here is the construction for + noun/pronoun + infinitive, where the example is made of.
The literal translation for this could be esperando para el otro zapato caer. However, this is a very caveman Spanish so it's better to invoke it with the subjunctive like esperando para el otro zapato que caiga.
However, this construction does not always trigger the subjunctive, mostly, because it depends on the verb we're using:
- It's hard for me to say this. (= es difícil para mí decir esto.)
- It's vital for you to rest. (= es vital para ti descansar.)
Like English, this construction is used when the infinitive needs its own subject.
