Request for ethnic terms

[Avraham Kofman]

Here are some Russian (mostly) ethnic expressions I could recover from my
 memory. You certainly have most of them, but still.

1. American hills (Russian 'amerikanskie gorki') - roller-coaster. As far as I
 know , an obsolete English term for this is 'Russian hills'.

2. Engish way, leave in an (Russian 'ujti po-anglijski') - to leave discretely,
 without saying good-bye.

3. Spanish fly (Russian 'shpanskaja (an old word for 'Spanish') mushka) - an
 artificial beauty-spot on face. Obsolete.

4. Chinese writings (Russian 'kitajskaja gramota') -  something too complicated
 to understand.

5. Swedish table (Russian 'shvedskij stol') - buffet (all you can eat) way of
 catering in a restaurant, etc.

6. Turk (Russian 'turok') - a stupid, slow-witted person.

7. French desease (Russian 'fran^suzskaja bolezn'') - a 19 century euphemism for
 syphilis.

8. Jewish luck (Russian/Yiddish 'evrejskoe schast'e/idisher mazl') - bad luck,
 the one Jews are supposed to have permanently.

9. Spartan upbringing (Russian 'spartanskoe vospitanie') - the meaning is
 self-evident.

10. Italian strike (Russian 'ital'janskaja zabastovka') - ditto.

11. Bengal light (Russian 'bengal'skij ogon'') - ditto.

12. American nut (Russian 'amerikanskij orekh') - Brazil nut.

13. Greek nut (Russian 'gre^skij (a form for 'Greek' used only in this phrase)
 orekh') - walnut.

14. Swedish wrench (Russian 'shvedskij kljuch', Hebrew 'mafteah shvedi') -
 adjustable wrench.

15. French wrench (Russian 'fran^suzskij kljuch') - monkey-wrench.

16. Finnish knife (Russian 'finskij nozh', abbr. 'finka') - a short knife,
 generally with a plexiglas handle, a preferred weapon of underworld and
 hooligans.

17. Siberian ulcer (Russian 'sibirskaja jazva') - malignant anthrax.

18. English salt (Russian 'anglijskaja sol'') - bitter/Epsom salt.

19. Dutch cheese (Russian 'gollandskij syr') - a generic name for all hard
 cheses.

20. Siamese twins (Russian 'siamskie blizne^sy') - the usual meaning.

21. Turkish koffee (Hebrew 'kafe turki') - ground roated koffee.

22. Japanese knife (Hebrew 'sakin japani') - a knife with a sliding blade.

23. Kurd (Hebrew 'kurdi') - a stupid person.

24. Chinese reed (Russian 'kitajskij trostnik') - an obsolete term for bamboo.

25. German humor (Russian 'neme^skij jumor') - a kind of humor when you are
 supposed to laugh when, say, somebody loses his trousers.

Following are the ones the eligibility of which I am not quite sure in:

Maltese cross (Russian 'mal'tijskij krest'); Turkish drum (Russian 'ture^skij
 baraban) - a very big drum; Percian cat (Russian 'persidskij kot'); Finn, it
 gets through to him (you, her, etc) as to a (Russian 'dokhodit kak do finna') -
 gets through very slowly.

I may come up with some more if this is what you are looking for.