Devil in the details
Welcome to the newest edition of SoundCzech. Today we will listen to a song by the Eben Brothers called Čert, or the Devil. We have already talked about the devil in another SoundCzech episode, but today we will look at a few more fun Czech sayings that involve the prince of darkness. The song we will listen to today, also talks about a different side of the feared entity – a sad devil.
This is not the only expression where there is more than one devil involved. Czech often uses ‘čert’ in the plural. For example, another devil-related phrase that has to do with movement is “běhat po všech čertech”, which literally means to run to all the devils. Which unlike “jdi k čertu”, which means almost literally ‘go to hell’, this phrase uses the devils to mean far away or unknown places. You can use it when you talk about having to go to many different places to get something, for example, or to say that someone is very busy and you have no idea where they are.
And, of course, devilish phrases often go back to the olden days where the devil actually scared people, so to this day, when you say “malovat čerta na stěnu” or “na zeď”, you mean to predict a sad future, or to give a bleak outlook. Literally the phrase means to draw the devil on the wall and when you don’t like when someone is being too negative about future prospects you can say “nemaluj čerta na stěnu”. And to end this SoundCzech, we hope you stay in good spirits, and that the ‘čert’ or many ‘čerti’ won’t bother you too much.
