you just tortured me with a dead bird

Hello everybody
I had a difficult discussion with a colleague in the professional sense. After its finish the colleague wrote: you just tortured me with a dead bird. I don't understand what this means.
Everybody who clarifies this will be very much appreciated.

I don't know what that means either, but it is funny -- perhaps intentionally.

elenav said:

Hello, everybody.
I had a difficult discussion with a work colleague. in the professional sense. After its finish Afterwards, the my colleague wrote no colon here "You just tortured me with a dead bird".
I don't understand what this means. Everybody Anyone who clarifies explains this will be very much appreciated.

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I have no idea what he/she was talking about. Is your colleague a native English speaker? Why did they suddenly write something down at the end of a conversation? It would have been simpler for them to say it to you.
Without breaking any professional confidentiality, can you give us a rough idea what the "difficult discussion" was about? Maybe there's some loose link to birds/dead birds. Maybe he was making a pun. It's certainly not a phrase I've ever come across.

@elenav I don't know how I missed that. On second thought, I was so distracted by the oddness of that phrase that I didn't notice the oddness of him writing it down instead of saying it.

the discussion was written also. it concerned some software development. I am an IT developer.

elenav said:

The discussion was written also. It concerned some software development. I am an IT developer.

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That was unclear (obviously). You might say you had an exchange of text messages. Also, that odd sentence was the last part of it.

You might try googling "torture with a dead bird".

Tarheel said:

That was unclear (obviously). You might say you had an exchange of text messages. Also, that odd sentence was the last part of it.

You might try googling "torture with a dead bird".

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tried googling. no luck. only tortured birds are being caught.

elenav said:

I tried googling.

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elenav said:

No luck. Only tortured birds are being caught.

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I don't get that last part. However, since you know him personally the best thing to do would be to ask him what he meant by that.

It has no meaning whatsoever in English. Is it perchance a word by word translation from Russian or some other language?

elenav said:

The discussion was written also. It concerned some software development. I am an IT developer.

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elenav said:

I tried googling it. I had no luck. Only tortured birds are being caught.

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Remember to start every sentence with a capital letter and to write complete sentences. I have no idea what you mean by the part starting "Only tortured birds".

Tarheel said:

I don't get that last part. However, since you know him personally the best thing to do would be to ask him what he meant by that.

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I mean when I am googling only articles about tortured birds are found. And that is not what I need.
The person is the boss of some other department. He is Dutchman. I don't have any personal relation with him so I think I can't ask him directly.

I would say "He is Dutch" or "He is a Dutchman".

If I were you I would just give up on this one. It's not worth wasting a lot of time on.

Out of curiosity, is English the language people communicate with in that company? (Dutch and Russian are, of course, two different languages.)

(Articles on tortured birds? Yuck!)

Tarheel said:

I would say "He is Dutch" or "He is a Dutchman".

If I were you I would just give up on this one. It's not worth wasting a lot of time on.

Out of curiosity, is English the language people communicate with in that company? (Dutch and Russian are, of course, two different languages.)

(Articles on tortured birds? Yuck!)

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You are right. People communicate with English in our company.

elenav said:

You are right. People communicate with in English in our company.

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It's possible it's a direct translation from a Dutch phrase. If you don't feel you can ask him what he meant, I'd forget about it completely.

I can't even think of a close English expression that he might have mistranslated.

We do say "beat a dead horse", but that just means to belabor a point that is futile.

Edit: I'm really curious about this, so I posted a query over at the Unilang forum. If I get a definitive answer, I'll share.

Two suggestions were made over at Unilang.

The first, by a non-Dutch speaker, was that he was maybe trying to reference the English idiom of having or hanging an albatross about one's neck.

However, a native Dutch speaker said the following (credit to username "Jannet" over at the Unilang forum:

There is an expression 'iemand blij maken met een dode mus' (make someone happy with a dead sparrow), meaning that one promises the other something good, but eventually it turnes out to be of no value. So in that case the receiver of the so-called good thing (the live sparrow), may feel he received a dead sparrow in stead of the promised live one. Which could explain his feeling of being tortured, he expected something nice, and now there is nothing special.

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@elenav Do either of those situations seem plausible based on what you and your Dutch colleague discussed? You say you had a difficult discussion, which I take to mean the conversation didn't go well. If he didn't like what you had to tell him, then the sparrow idiom might make sense.

Skrej said:

Two suggestions were made over at Unilang.

The first, by a non-Dutch speaker, was that he was maybe trying to reference the English idiom of having or hanging an albatross about one's neck.

However, a native Dutch speaker said the following (credit to username "Jannet" over at the Unilang forum:



@elenav Do either of those situations seem plausible based on what you and your Dutch colleague discussed? You say you had a difficult discussion, which I take to mean the conversation didn't go well. If he didn't like what you had to tell him, then the sparrow idiom might make sense.

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The dutch colleague claimed that the system is buggy. After some analysis it turned out that he didn't know the algorithm so he expected another result. I had to explain the algorithm to him and this took significant time. At the end he said that the algorithm was quite reasonable. And then he wrote the phrase. Also it may be funny, but my last name Vorobey that means sparrow in English. I think he had a difficult time (comparable with a torture) while he was trying to understand the explanation .

Skrej,​

Thank you for your efforts and time

@elenev I think you meant to say your Dutch colleague expected a different result. As for that expression, I can imagine using it for humorous effect. (See below.)

Bob: You tortured me with a dead bird.
Sally: What?
Bob: You heard what I said.
Sally: Maybe I did, but it makes no sense.
Bob: Exactly! What you just said makes no sense.

Without further context, it's difficult to say for certain what your colleague meant by "you just tortured me with a dead bird." However, it's possible that this was an expression of frustration or annoyance with the discussion you had with them.

The phrase "torture with a dead bird" is not a common idiom in English, so it's possible that your colleague was using it in a unique or creative way. However, it's also possible that they misspoke or used the wrong phrase in the heat of the moment.

If you're unsure about what your colleague meant, you could consider asking them to clarify or provide more context. This could help you understand their perspective and improve your communication with them in the future.