His Mustard Jumped Off

His Mustard Jumped Off – “A-i sări muștarul” – is a Romanian saying that means to get angry.

It is well known that the Romanians make fun out of trouble – “A face haz de necaz” – a kind of self-defense mechanism due to the neverending hard times they endure over the hundred of years when irony and humor was their only weapon. This may be a reason why a large part of the sayings and proverbs contain a note of incomparable humor unmasking a harsh truth. The humor, going as far as a sharp irony and ridicule, that nobody can get away from, often paints an artistic reality.

Proverbs appear as unchanged patterns in the physiognomy of the language. Not the essence of the sayings, but the form, was twisted by the people, reaching the most simplified form caught in a crystallized stereotypical form, memorable and difficult to change. This was a process of hundreds of years of evolution and it is deeply engraved in the national consciousness of the people. The Romanian sayings are a philosophy of life and are considered to be true gems of people’s thinking.

That is precisely why there is a rigid way of Romanian thinking that does not agree “Care nu se pupă” with the new ideologies that come with the speed of thought “Cu iuțeala gândului” to impose ideas that contradict the moral values ​​well encapsulated in the Romanian proverbs.