Split hairs
“Agarrarse del chongo
- Meaning
To quarrel about trivial unimportant things. To waste time arguing about irrelevant matters.
- Origin
It is said that William Shakespeare used a similar expression in one of his writings in the 1600´s. In those times, it was thought that splitting hairs would be utterly impossible since a hair is such a fine thing that no instrument available at that time could be used to perform such a fine detailed action.
- Example
-Oh, hun. This is such a special day.
-Really? What do you mean?
-What? Don´t you remember?
-Oh, yes. It was the day when we met one year ago. How could I forget?
-Do you still remeber what time it was?
-I remember that it was in the afternoon.
-Yeah, but what time?
-I..Well…Uhmmm…
-You see? You don´t care about important mattters in our relationship!
-Here we go, splitting hairs once again!