French Il pleut comme une vache qui pisse.
[il plø kɔm yn vaʃ ki pis] 3SG.M rain-3SG.PRS like INDF.SG.F cow which piss-3SG.PRS It's raining like a cow which is pissing.
Lohdan Sirûdâ alur nin loho.
[si'ɾu:dɑ: 'ɑluɾ nĩ: 'loRo] rain-SG.PRS yellow water horse It's raining horse piss.
I can't confirm this, as I don't speak the language, but the internet informs me:
Munster: tá sé ag cur foirc agus sceana
Connaught: tá sé ag cur sceana gréasaí
Ulster: tá sé ag cur balc báistí
So, take this with a pinch of salt, but I think these translate literally as "he is at sowing forks and knives", "he is at sowing bootmaker's knives" and "he is at sowing a downpour of rain".
There may be a pun involved in the first two: cur means 'sowing' or 'planting', but it also means a 'set', and specifically a cur sceanna is a set of knives. So, I've no idea about idiomaticness, but it looks as though it could translate either as "it is raining knives and forks" or "there's a set of knives and forks". ['ag' is used both to indicate possession and to indicate imperfectives].
However, these expressions can also sometimes simply use cáitheadh instead of cur - so "wearing" or "throwing".
What is a bootmaker's knife? A paring knife, apparently. They seem to just be keen on bootmakers - a "mitín gréasaí", or "bootmaker's mitten", is just the palm of a hand.
There isn't a direct pun on gréasaí, I don't think, but I wonder whether speakers would have the impression of wordplay - gréasaí is also a grammatical form of the adjective 'gréasach', which can mean 'continual' (or 'embroidered'). It's not doing that here, I don't think because it would have to be in the singular and the knives are plural (unless it's a comparative construction but I don't think they work like that), but I wonder whether it might have influenced the appeal of the word.
In the Ulster version, a 'balc' is a male form of 'bailc', meaning a downpour, or the verbal noun for pouring down or pressing down (maybe it's masculine in the Ulster dialect?). Alternatively, it can mean a beam, or any solid thing. Maybe it's a literal beam (c.f. English "raining stair-rods"), or it's a literal (but transgendered) downpour, or maybe it's a beam that's also a pun for a downpour? You'd have to be familiar both with the idiom and with the etymology to know.
There's also the phrase péata báistí, which only looks pet-related (peata) if you don't pay attention to the vowel length - it actually means a downpour, but literally I think "pewter of rain". There's also liagarnach báistí - liagarnach is a casting of stones, but in this case of rain. (léidearnach chlagair appears to translate just to "a pelting of pelting"...)
English
Portuguese
French
Lohdan
German
griuskant (without script here)
