oude koeien uit de sloot halen

Dutch edit

Etymology edit

Literally means "to get old cows out of the ditch". This originally referred to the removal of cadavers of drowned cows.[1]

Verb edit

oude koeien uit de sloot halen

  1. (intransitive) to bring up long forgotten unpleasant subjects

Usage notes edit

Usually preceded by geen to use the verb as a negative. In that case it is similar in meaning to let bygones be bygones.

Inflection edit

References edit

  1. ^ “Oude koeien uit de sloot halen”, in onzetaal.nl[1], Genootschap OnzeTaal, 2011 May 2, archived from the original on 25 October 2020