to operate on Tongan time
- idiom
- Slur
:
[Ofensivo] llegar tarde por costumbre (referido a los tonganos)
- Our hosts love to operate on Tongan time, so dinner didn't start until an hour after we'd arrived.
Examples
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At the beach party, everyone seemed to operate on Tongan time and arrived whenever they liked.
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If you want to operate on Tongan time, don't stress about being a few minutes late.
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Don't worry, we operate on Tongan time here!
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My family operates on Tongan time during holidays.
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At the beach party, everyone seemed to operate on Tongan time and arrived whenever they liked.
-
If you want to operate on Tongan time, don't stress about being a few minutes late.
-
Our hosts love to operate on Tongan time, so dinner didn't start until an hour after we'd arrived.
Antonyms
How Punctual
321
1.0
- Slur
86
2.2
9
1.3
∞
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase literally composes 'operate on' with 'Tongan time', so a learner can infer it means to function according to the time norms associated with Tonga. However, the specific inference that those norms imply a relaxed or unhurried schedule depends on cultural/world-knowledge (and parallels like 'island time'), so the exact pragmatic meaning is not fully predictable from the words alone.
Etymology
Operate on Tongan time may come from island life in Tonga, where people are relaxed about clocks and events often start later. So saying someone operates on Tongan time gives the image of using island time, arriving or starting later, and means 'to follow a relaxed or unhurried schedule'.