Provençal expression

es pressa coume un lavamen

Feelings

Literal translation

he is as urgent as an enema

Meaning

he's in a great hurry

Explanation

This expression describes someone seized by an extreme haste, unable to wait a single second longer. The literal image, cheerfully coarse and comic, relies on the enema, a medical procedure whose effect, once administered, demands an immediate and pressing evacuation, with no possibility of postponement or polite restraint: the bodily urgency it triggers leaves no room for manoeuvre to the person experiencing it. Comparing someone's haste to that caused by an enema is therefore a deliberately low and physical, almost scatological, choice of image, meant to underline with humour just how irrepressible and uncontrollable that urgency is, comparable to a bodily need that cannot be put off. The register is frankly popular and racy, used among friends or in relaxed situations, never in a formal setting, to gently mock someone fidgeting or fretting without sufficient reason. This kind of slightly bawdy bodily comparison belongs to a widespread strand of rural humour in Provence.

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Other expressions on the same theme

siéu dessus-dessoutoI'm shaken, turned upside down ai lou bate-cormy heart is pounding moun sang faguè lou viro-passomy blood ran cold, I was shocked instantly s'as pòu, bouto-te uno pèiro à la pochoif you're scared, find your own comfort de pòu de se bagna, s'es pissa i braiofearing a small harm, he caused a worse one m'a fa dreissa li chivu sus la tèstoit made my hair stand on end