Hello wonderful English students. Join me each day for an interesting question about the English language, British culture, or just life in general. Please feel free to add your comments below, or to contact me directly on italki.
If you have a question you'd like answered, just let me know.
In the meantime, good luck with today's question 😊

Question

Hello wonderful English students. Join me each day for an interesting question about the English language, British culture, or just life in general. Please feel free to add your comments below, or to contact me directly on italki. 
If you have a question you'd like answered, just let me know.
In the meantime, good luck with today's question 😊

Answer

Thanks Enrico. It's really interesting that it's also used in Italian, as it's such a weird phrase. Apparently it comes from an ancient idea that a child was formed from the spit of their parents, and that this explained the facial resemblance. It's a great phrase in IELTS whenever a candidate needs to talk about a person they know.

Answer

In Italian we also say: "immagine sputata"; I think it comes from dubbing films; the Italians dubber often dubbing English lines in a literal translation.