Glossary entry

Arabic term or phrase:

مش حتاخذ لا ابيض والا اسود

English translation:

it won\'t take anyone

Added to glossary by Arabic & More
Jun 4, 2014 05:11
9 yrs ago
Arabic term

مش حتاخذ لا ابيض والا اسود

Arabic to English Social Sciences General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters
This phrase appears in a conversation between Egyptians living in North America.

The topic is the high rate of unemployment. They are saying that it is so hard to find a job these days that highly qualified people are deleting their qualifications and experience from their CVs so that potential employers do not consider them overqualified.

One of the people says:
مش حتاخذ لا ابيض والا اسود

By "you won't take" I believe the speaker is referring to the employers themselves (you won't take white nor black), and he is referring to professional qualifications (not race).

My question is whether this means they won't employ people at either extreme (whether overqualified or underqualified) or if it simply means they won't take anyone, regardless of qualifications, or something like "you can't do anything to make them happy."

Discussion

Mona Helal Jun 4, 2014:
a question? Hi Amel,

حتاخد
is he talking about the company or is that person addressing/taking to someone?
ie the pronoun ت in this term: هل هي تاء المخاطبة أم تاء التأنيث؟

Proposed translations

28 mins
Selected

you won't take anything

Amel, like you said it is colloquial Egyptian. لا أبيض ولا أسود literally means: not a thing, nothing.

Please refer to my question above.

"You won't take anything" would be the answer if the speaker is addressing a male.

Otherwise: if the speaker is talking about the company (with a feminine pronoun); then in this case the answer would be: "It (the company) won't take anyone".

Having said that لا ابيض ولا اسود isn't usually used to express 'anyone', but rather "anything".

Hope this helps.

Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks a lot for your help with this. I believe the pronoun was referring to the company."
20 mins

You'll get nothing

Egyptian slang expression = You'll get nothing.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 25 mins (2014-06-04 05:36:50 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

or "You won't get anything."
Note from asker:
Thank you for this suggestion. It was helpful to me.
Something went wrong...
2 days 4 hrs

It is useless...

Basically no result one way or another
Note from asker:
Thank you for this helpful alternative.
Something went wrong...
Term search
  • All of ProZ.com
  • Term search
  • Jobs
  • Forums
  • Multiple search