/far veˈnire il ˈlatte ˈalle dʒiˈnɔkkja/ lit. ‘make the milk come down to your knees’
Italian idiom, colloquial. Something is so boring it wears you out.
Draft Not yet checked by a native Italian speaker.
How do people use Far venire il latte alle ginocchia
?
Colloquial and a little comic, the kind of thing you mutter about a long meeting or a lecture that won’t end. The boring thing is the subject and the victim is an indirect pronoun: “quel film mi ha fatto venire il latte alle ginocchia”. People also say it of a person who drones on, and then it leans toward “this guy is wearing me out”.
Far venire il latte alle ginocchia
in real sentences
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Mi fa venire il latte alle ginocchia.
It bores me to tears.
Tatoeba, sentence by Guybrush88, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Quel film mi ha fatto venire il latte alle ginocchia.
That film bored me to tears.
Tatoeba, sentence by Guybrush88, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Far venire il latte alle ginocchia
come from?
Nobody has a documented origin for this one. English Wiktionary gives only the literal reading and Italian Wiktionary lists it under “latte” with the meaning “to bore”, without a date or first use. The explanation people usually offer is that someone has been made to wait so long that their breasts have sagged down to their knees, which would fit the comic exaggeration, but we found no source that backs it up.
Mistakes learners make with Far venire il latte alle ginocchia
Dropping the pronoun or the auxiliary. The boring thing does the action to you, so it’s “mi fa venire” in the present and “mi ha fatto venire” in the past, never “ho venuto il latte”. And keep the feminine plural: “alle ginocchia”.
Other Italian idioms like Far venire il latte alle ginocchia
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?
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