«كُل شِيءْ يِوْجَعْهُمْ إِلَّا مَبْلَعْهُمْ»

This saying mocks people whose ailments surface only when effort is required. Ask them to help and they suddenly have sore backs, weariness, or some reason to hang back; set out a meal and they arrive first, untroubled. Their aches, the line implies, are convenient excuses rather than genuine suffering.

The wit lies in counting swallowing, the work of the throat, as a task like any other, then observing that it is the one task their bodies never protest. In this way the jab pins two faults on its target at once: shirking every chore and showing unfailing eagerness for food.

Use it wryly about someone, or a group, who claims aches or fatigue whenever chores come up yet hurries over the moment food is served. Because it charges its target with laziness and gluttony, saying it directly to a particular person can easily give offense.