What's behind the expression?

As the astoundingly prolific Andrew Morris said on his blog a few hours ago, "... I must say I do like a translator who has a keen mastery of everyday speech".
I couldn't agree more.
And, indeed, had already planned on precisely this topic this morning.
The trouble is that translators specialising in technical documents or even technical journalism, don't got too many opportunities to translate everyday speech.
The exceptions include interviews and quotations that pop up in editorials, letters from the C-suite and so forth.
Everyday speech -- indeed anything containing what the French call petites phrases toutes faites, or little phrases and expressions that say a lot -- often present more challenges than many suspect.

I've been reading Philippe Delerm's Je vais passer pour un vieux con.
... see next post.