IS BUTTER MELTING IN YOUR MOUTH?

 

A speaker of Spanish no matter how hard she would try, never in a million years would fathom the meaning of "to look as if butter would not melt in one´s mouth." A citation: "Yasodha turns to find an angelic expression on her son´s face as if butter wouldn´t melt in his mouth." (Ramesh Menon, Blue God, 2000.)  Someone who appears to be innocent, angelic, and good, but is not. However, if we tell the Spanish-speaker that someone looks "como si no hubiese roto un plato en su vida" she´ll get the drift. "Pareces un angelito que no ha roto un plato ni ha matado una mosca en su vida." (Lola Beccaria, La luna en Jorge, 2001.) But the nagging question is, why does language invent convoluted and complicated sentences to express simple ideas? But, sad to say, every language is loaded with idiomatic expressions that we must learn.