Imagine a workplace scenario where there’s a looming deadline, and everyone is scrambling to finish a critical project. However, one employee – let’s call him Marco – is sitting at his desk, meticulously organising paperclips by colour.
In Italian, you could metaphorically describe Marco’s engagement in a pointless and trivial activity as pettinare le bambole, which literally translates to to brush the dolls’ hair.
pettinare le bambole
to waste time on something pointless
This idiom is used to describe someone who wastes time on a pointless or trivial activity instead of focusing on an urgent or important task. In English, we have a few expressions that convey a similar idea, such as:
- to twiddle one’s thumbs
- to faff around
- to fiddle while Rome burns
- to flog a dead horse
Smettila di pettinare le bambole! Questo progetto non si finirà da solo!
Stop wasting time / faffing around! This project won’t finish itself!
Other activities that might fall into the category of pettinare le bambole include spending excessive time on the computer doing nothing, wasting hours scrolling through social media posts, or like my son yesterday, digging up stones instead of helping us weed the front lawn!
Why pettinare le bambole, you might ask? Well, according to Sapere.it, there are two reasons: first, combing dolls’ hair is a repetitive and seemingly pointless activity that little girls often resort to when they’ve run out of other games to play. Second, traditionally feminine activities have historically been undervalued compared to masculine ones, making them seem more trivial.
A very common expression that contains this idiom is:
Mica stiamo qui a pettinare le bambole!
We’re not here to waste time / faff around!
What’s amusing about this particular expression is that many people substitute pettinare le bambole with numerous other so-called useless activities including:
- Mica stiamo qui a smacchiare i leopardi > smacchiare i leopardi = to remove spots from leopards
- Mica stiamo qui a rifarci le unghie > rifarci le unghie = to do our nails
- Mica stiamo qui a raddrizzare le banane > raddrizzare le banane = to straighten bananas
- Mica stiamo qui ad asciugare gli scogli > asciugare gli scogli = to dry off the rocks
- Mica stiamo qui a mangiare le caramelle > mangiare le caramelle = to eat candies
- Mica stiamo qui a fare biscotti > fare biscotti = to make cookies
- Mica stiamo qui a far ballare la scimmia > far ballare la scimmia = to make the monkey dance
- Mica stiamo qui a far attraversare le formiche > far attraversare le formiche = to make the ants cross the street
It’s very common to hear the phrase Vai a pettinare le bambole! shouted at someone who is could be making much better use of their time.
Vai a pettinare le bambole!
Go and do something more useful!
Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
