To spin a yarn, to pull someone’s leg, to talk through one’s hat; to bullshit, to blow smoke, to try it on. A highly popular, colorful colloquial idiom. It literally translates to “to ruffle the grandmother’s hair” (historically linked to card-shuffling slang or old street cons). It is used to describe an attempt to deceive, overcomplicate, or talk nonsense in order to evade the truth: 1. Trying to trick or mislead someone with an absurd or overly convoluted story (ты мне тут бабушку не лохмать, говори где был — “don’t give me that bullshit, just tell me where you were”); 2. Talking about irrelevant things instead of addressing the core issue (хватиt лохматить бабушку, давай за дело — “stop blowing smoke and let’s get down to business”).
Ну что… продолжаем лохматить бабушку? Или всё уже выяснили?
So… shall we continue to fuck around? Or have you already figured everything out?
(Н.Ежелев @ guns.ru, 11/2011)
