Spanish Saying

El burro hablando de orejas.

The Donkey With Ears Talks.

Even though my informant does not speak fluent Spanish, his nanny spoke to him frequently in random phrases and even taught him a few sayings.  One phrase that my informant remembers and wanted to share with me was the one states above that his nanny nearly told him everyday and seemed to be her favorite saying to describe him.  He was one of four children that was cared for by his nanny Olivia.  She was from Mexico from Guadalajara.  She had been the nanny for 7 years while Alex was growing up from the ages of 3-10.

His personality consists of criticizing others very easily not noticing his own faults.  This saying was said by his nanny every time he would go tattle tale on his brothers to the nanny. A good example would be that he would tell the nanny that it is not right that his brother took cookies before eating dinner, yet he himself would do that on a daily basis.  Another example would be that he would call his brothers fat and slobbish, and again a perfect response would be to say this saying, noting that he himself is not so slim.

The saying talks about a donkey and its ears.  This is probably because a donkey’s ears are very noticeable and a key element for what consists of a donkey.  It is rhetorical as if a donkey is already criticizing someone’s ears, yet the donkey itself has very humorous ears.

In English, this saying is similar to “pot calling the kettle black”, which is unknown to both the informant and myself of its origins, probably the fact that both a pot and kettle are often of the color black.

The saying points out the hypocrisy in a person’s personality in a humorous way.  It is a good way of telling someone that what they just said was inappropriate and invalid because of who said it.  It is an easy way to insult the person who made the comment, because it is referring that the person simply criticized another to make him or her feel better about themselves.