An overwhelming majority of English idiomatic expressions have similar in sense units in Ukrainian. Sometimes these lexically corresponding idiomatic expressions of the source language may also contain easily perceivable for the target language speakers combinations of images as well as similar or identical structural forms. These idiomatic expressions, naturally, are in most cases easily given corresponding analogies in the target language. As a matter of fact, such expressions are sometimes very close in their connotative (metaphorical) meaning in English and Ukrainian as well. Any common or similar traits of idiomatic expressions are the main proof of their being genuine analogies. The latter in each of the two languages comprise also proverbs and sayings as well as the so-called standardized and stable collocations: he that mischief hatches mischief catches , / , ; to have the ready tongue ; to keep body and sole ^ / ; like mistress, like maid ; there is no use crying over spilt milk , ; bear a dead horse .
Many of such and the like idiomatic expressions may often have two and more analogous by sense variants in the target lan-
guage. The choice of an analogy rests then with the translator and is predetermined by the style of the text: not for love or money / ; don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs ; ; , etc.; he that lies down with dogs must rise up with fleas , ; , , , ; a crooked stick throws a crooked shadow , / , , , ; don't cross the bridges before you come to them ; , ; first catch your hare then cook him , ; , . The number of analogous (similar by sense) expressions for an idiom in the target language may reach a regular row as it is the case with the Ukrainian phraseological expression / . This idiom may have the following substitutes in different contextual environments: every man has a fool in his sleeve; every man has his faults; every bean has its black; every man has his weak side; Homer sometimes nods/sleeps; no man is wise at all times; it is a good horse that never stumbles; a horse stumbles that has four legs, etc.
4. Translating Idioms by Choosing Approximate Analogies Some source language idiomatic and stable expressions may have a peculiar nature of their componental parts or a peculiar combination of them and thus form nationally peculiar expressiveness and picturesqueness of componental images. The latter constitute some hidden meaning, which is mostly not quite explicit and comprehensible, not transient enough for the foreigner to catch it.
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As a result, there exist no genuine phraseological analogies for the units in the target language. Since it is so, their lexical meaning can be expressed by means of only approximate analogies or through explication, i.e., in a descriptive way. These analogies are only to a slight degree similar to the source language idioms, although they may be no less picturesque and expressive than the source language variants: kind words butter no parsnips '; to lose one's breath ; to make a cat's paw of something ; a joint in one's armour ' ( ); the sow loves bran better than roses , ; more power to your elbow , !; to come off scot free ; to be finger and thumb (cf. ); to be from Missouri
(Amer.) ; it is six and half a dozen , ; what's Hecuba to me ( ); to get the blues / , etc.
No need to emphasize that selection of approximate analogies for a translator is no easy task, as the source languages idioms/ phraseologisms often bear some characteristics of a language's traits having no correspondence in the target language. Cf.: The answer's a lemon / .
Many idioms have obscure origin/etymology and selecting of approximate equivalents as any other corresponding semantic variants often requires a linguistic investigation on the part of the translator. For example: to be in the cart means to be closed in a cage as a convict (for some crime) and be exposed to general scorn of one's compatriots (as in old times in England). It may be translated into Ukrainian as / ; .
