If you spit downwards it hits the beard, upwards the moustache.

Is it something used in English? We are trying to find those with close meanings in both English and Turkish.

2 expressions we would use in English are ´caught between the devil and the deep blue sea´ and ´caught between a rock and a hard place´.

 Also "In a catch 22 situation" - comes from the book titled Catch 22

or "Hobson´s choice" from the play, where Hobson had to choose between all the town knowing he was a drunk, and letting his daughter marry the man she wanted to (he disapproved)

Catch 22 is one of the best novels I read. I laughed a lot while I was reading it.

Başkasının işine burnunu sokmak = to poke one´s nose to others´ business

Bir şeye Fransız kalmak = lit. stay as a French to something (meaning to not understand something)

Is there any equivalent saying in English with the word ´French´ involved?

Yesterday our PM used this saying on a question by a French member of PACE.

Is she a French  (who asked this question)?

confirmation comes and he continues...

"Kusura bakmayın ama siz Türkiye´ye Fransız kalmışsınız." = "Excuse me but you stay French to Turkey." (You don´t understand the matters of Turkey but you talk as if you do.)

Muriel Marland-Militello (L) said her Armenian-Turkish family was saved in 1915 by their Muslim neighbors, who helped them escape from Turkey by boat.

The European parliamentarian the Turkish prime minister accused of being “foreign” to Turkey is actually of Armenian-Turkish origin and her mother is from Istanbul, the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review learned Thursday.

French parliamentarian Muriel Marland-Militello drew a sharp response from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan when she asked him a question about the protection of minorities in Turkey during his appearance before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, or PACE, in Strasbourg.

Erdoğan said he would like to invite Marland-Militello to visit Turkey, since she had perhaps not been closely following developments in the country and was speaking based on hearsay.

“In Turkish, when somebody does not know something or speaks out of context, it is said that they are from France. Mrs. Marland-Militello is clearly from France,” Erdoğan said.

“The prime minister did not know my family was from Kadıköy, Istanbul. My mother was born in Turkey. She was an Orthodox Christian,” Marland-Militello told the Daily News in a telephone interview Thursday.

“I just think his answer to me was not a correct one. He just said I was French and I know that expression and what it means in Turkish. I know that it was not very nice expression,” she said. “The prime minister did not know my mother and my grandfather were both from Kadıköy.”

Source: here

Sudan çıkmış balık = fish out of water

If you are placed in a situation that is completely new to you and confuses you, you are like "sudan çıkmış balık".

"Geçti Bor´un pazarı, sür eşeğini Niğde´ye"

Literally it means "Bor´s (a small district of Niğde) market/bazaar is over, drive your donkey to Niğde (a province)" and it is used when it is too late for something. I also find this expression funny, it is mostly used to make fun of someone.

I was wondering if there is a similar expression in English. One can say "too little too late" but actually we don´t talk about being little in this case, but only being way too late

How about the English expression "taking your own sweet time" . Its when someone seems to be procrastinating when they are expected to be somewhere.

My favourite is

         Aşağı tükürsem sakal, yukarı tükürsem bıyık

´If I split down, beard, if I split up, moustache.´ It´s used about a no-win situation. Maybe my thinking is too visual, but it always makes me smile.

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Oh, I´m sorry. I just noticed there was a post about it already.