PONS Handwörterbuch Deutsch/Englisch

Das war nicht das Gelbe vom Ei - That wasn't exactly brilliant

"Definitely NOT the Dog's Bollocks they claim to be in my experience. Just bollocks."

Siehe
http://www.brightonnewmedia.org/pipermail/bnm...

"Das Gelbe vom Ei" liesse sich - wenn es ein bisschen colloquial sein darf - mit "the dog's bollocks" uebersetzen.
Was ich nicht weiss, ist, ob man diese Phrase auch in der Verneinung verwendet (mit google selten gefunden; "das Gelbe vom Ei" wird eigentlich nur in der Verneinung verwendet). Was sagen die native speaker?

In BE you would be more likely to talk about the cat's whiskers. However, you need to use thisin conjunction with "not exactly" as this phrase is usually used postiively and sounds funny to me when used negatively without the word "exactly". There must be something better though. How about simply "not ideal"?

As with Anne-Marie's this is normally used positively (often sarcastically - she thinks she's the bee's knees!), but it works with not exactly.

Cyprinius
I think the 'dog's bollocks' is a bit crude - ok in a pub maybe but not the kind of phrase you drop into official conversation. ;-)

Doris
On reading your "cut the mustard", I realised that we also say "It just doesn't cut" (cut what, I don't know, maybe it was originally the mustard, although it's difficult stuff to cut)
;-)

wow, Forumchecker

You replied to a 4 1/2 year old posting.

years

@Anette: So what? Whoever seeks information from in the LEO database does not care a bit when the information was posted. Linguistic expressions are valid even 10 or 50 years later!!!

Your comment, however, does not add any value to the linguistic discussion.

yours neither!

@Anette: related discussion: wie soll ich das verstehen?

Ein Archiv ist ein Archiv ist ein Archiv ...

(frei nach Gertrude Stein: 'A rose is a rose is a rose ...')

Trifft's das vielleicht?

I meant: not the cream of the crop