Ketunhäntä kainalossa

[AldenG]

Does anyone know why describing someone as being ketunhäntä kainalossa (having a fox tail under the arm) means they're being devious? Is it that they are being a sly fox and they're trying to disguise this by hiding their own telltale tail? Or does it have to do with stealing a fox, like the apocryphal stoic Spartan who let a stolen fox under his cape chew its way to his heart without giving away by word or expression that there was a fox or that this was happening? Something else? An Aesop fable I'm not recalling? A Kalevala verse?

[Upphew]

Does anyone know why describing someone as being ketunhänta kainalossa (having a fox tail under the arm) means they're being devious? Is it that they are being a sly fox and they're trying to disguise this by hiding their own telltale tail? Or does it have to do with stealing a fox, like the apocryphal stoic Spartan who let a stolen fox under his cape chew its way to his heart without giving away by word or expression that there was a fox or that this was happening? Something else? An Aesop fable I'm not recalling? A Kalevala verse?

Even if you don't do Finnish, the suggested translations might give you an idea: http://keskustelu.sanakirja.org/viewtopic1376.html

[CH]

Good question! I found an explanation here. It's from an old folk tale about a fox trying to get into a hen house by disquising itself as a man, but that darn tail just keeps poking from under the coat giving the fox away.

[AldenG]

Excellent, thanks!

[AldenG]

Even if you don't do Finnish

(P.S. now that I'm not writing on my mobile. Yes, I do a fair amount of Finnish, maintaining a number of ordinary email correspondences in Finnish and Swedish. Also translations from both to English from time to time. I wouldn't put my unchecked writing in either language into a book or a newspaper [the web doesn't count, does it ] but in everyday situations I feel highly functional, especially after a day or two of post-travel readjustment. I find radio in both languages to be very easy but some people in RL or on TV are not. Others are A-OK. It's less about dialect and more about enunciation -- also about my hearing, which varies daily with Meniere's and screeching tinnitus. I do have trouble with some songs, especially in Finnish. But I suspect songs are the acid test of aural comprehension in any language, and especially a rhythm-centric language like Finnish.)

[jahasjahas]

*häntä

[Jukka Aho]

I do have trouble with some songs, especially in Finnish. But I suspect songs are the acid test of aural comprehension in any language, and especially a rhythm-centric language like Finnish.)

Mondegreens abound even if you’re native speaker. (I don’t think Finnish has more potential for them than languages in general, but likely not less, either.)

Sometimes you can put the blame solely on the lyricist. Some of them first paint themselves into a corner and then solve the problem by coming up with the most awkward, uncommon phrasing (or a contrived choice of words) to force the lines rhyme. It might be something that looks acceptable on paper but which a first-time listener has difficulty parsing and hearing the way it was intended.

Another thing an inexperienced lyricist (or vocalist) might easily overlook is a mismatch between the duration of a vowel-to-be-sung and the (relative) length of the corresponding musical note. As the Finnish language has two distinctive lengths for each vowel, the vowel and the duration of the musical note to which it should be sung may be at odds with each other. This can create a rather jarring effect, essentially making the word sound mispronounced in a silly, sloppy way, or even making it sound like an unrelated word with a different meaning. Any lyricist worth their salt should not fall into this trap but sometimes they do.

In some cases, you could correct all that by paying attention to the problem and singing around it using a slightly different timing than the score would suggest (something by which you can tell apart an experienced performer and a novice), sometimes the only apparent way to fix it would be changing the lyrics.

[AldenG]

I think it's also a bit like those texts where the spelling of every word is deliberately mangled except for the first and last letter. At least in English, native readers can still read such text with relative ease.

Native listeners also don't need to hear every word clearly. The brain fills things in even if only subconsciously, especially if a few vowels are heard. Non-native listeners need to hear many more of the actual words because except for everyday things, we're not as good at filling in the blanks or rhymes.