Dennis in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, recalls that his Spanish-speaking mother used to speak frankly with him or rebuke him using the phrase “No tengo pelo en mi lengua,” meaning “I have no hair on my tongue.” The same idea appears in Italian, Welsh, Croatian, Serbian, and other languages. In French, the phrase that translates as “to have no hair on my tongue” means to not speak with a lisp. In Turkish it means “I’m tired of repeating myself.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Idiom to Have Hair on Your Tongue”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
My name is Dennis, and I’m calling from La Crosse, Wisconsin.
All right. Well, thank you for calling, Dennis. What’s on your mind?
What’s on my mind is this phrase that my mom used to say to me whenever she was scolding me.
And so the phrase was, I have no hair on my tongue, and this is what it is.
And so I would usually get that before a rebuke or before some hard advice that she would give me.
So I was just wondering where that came from, that I have no hair on my tongue.
So I have no hair on my tongue, meaning I’m going to give it to you straight.
I’m going to tell it like it is.
Pretty much, yeah.
I’m not going to hold back.
Yeah.
Can I ask you, Dennis, is she American?
No, she’s a Hispanic.
So she would say, like, no tengo pelo en mi lengua.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
Okay, that makes a lot more sense.
Because this idiom isn’t that common in English, and almost any time I find someone saying,
I have no hair on my tongue or something like that, it’s a multicultural or multilingual context.
But the same expression is used in Spanish-speaking countries, in Italian and Welsh and Croatian and Serbian, Turkish.
The origins of it are deep as far back as European culture goes.
Generally, it’s believed the general analysis of this tends to be by people who study these sorts of sayings is when you have hair in your tongue, you can’t speak clearly because you’re kind of trying to catch it with your teeth and your tongue.
And so it’s affecting your feet a little bit.
In fact, you’re trying to get the hair out of your teeth, so you wouldn’t be speaking clearly.
And if you’re not doing that, then you are speaking clearly.
As a matter of fact, in French, to have hair on one’s tongue does mean to speak with a lisp or to speak unclearly.
And in Turkish, it’s a little different.
In Turkish, if you say, I have no hair in my tongue, it can mean I’m tired of repeating myself.
Yeah.
But when she would say that, I’d kind of, figuratively speaking, be like a dog with a tail between its legs.
And then I’d just listen to what she has to say.
Oh, yeah.
So you’re the poor whipped boy, right?
Waiting to get the chastisement, right?
Oh, yeah.
I know those moments well.
More than my few.
But my mother didn’t say that particular idiom.
Yeah.
So in Spanish, if you do have hairs on your tongue, then it’s sort of like you tell white lies or you sort of equivocate.
Did she use it that way?
No, just that she wasn’t going to like soft tongue or sugarcoat anything for me.
And that if I didn’t like what she was hearing, you know, tough.
Right.
And the Spanish version again is?
No tengo pelo en mi lengua.
Right.
Literally, I don’t have hair on my tongue.
Perfect.
Well, that’s what we know.
Dennis, thanks for your call.
All right.
Thank you, guys.
Love your show.
Thank you.
Take care now.
Thanks, Dennis.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
