What it says
گوش تا گوش (gush tâ gush) is a tiny, vivid colloquial idiom. Literally “ear to ear.” Figuratively it means everywhere, all over town, on everyone’s lips, when news has spread from one ear to the next until the whole city has it.
The literal meaning
Two nouns and a preposition: گوش (gush) ear, تا (tâ) up to or until, گوش (gush) ear. The image is of information traveling ear to ear, person to person, with no stop in between. Persian built the idiom on the simplest possible map of how gossip moves: it does not need radios or newspapers. It needs two ears to hear it and two more to pass it on, and it keeps going until the chain reaches the entire neighborhood, city, family. Five words later, the whole town knows.
The figurative meaning
The news has gone fully public. A scandal, a surprise engagement, a public mistake, a piece of celebrity gossip, the resolution of a long argument. Iranians use the phrase with a small theatrical lift, often raising the eyebrows. There is usually a touch of warning in it: whatever you wanted kept quiet is no longer quiet. The phrase often pairs with the city itself, تهران (Tehrân), شهر (shahr) the city, محله (mahalle) the neighborhood. The phrase is neutral by itself but the contents of the news are usually juicy. Polite news rarely needs to travel ear to ear.
How to use it
- گوش تا گوش تهران خبر شد (gush tâ gush-e Tehrân khabar shod) “All of Tehran heard about it”
- گوش تا گوش محله میدونن (gush tâ gush-e mahalle midunan) “The whole neighborhood knows”
- یه روز بیشتر طول نکشید، گوش تا گوش پخش شد (ye ruz bishtar tul nakeshid, gush tâ gush pakhsh shod) “It didn’t take more than a day, it spread ear to ear”
Related expressions
The idiom sits with a small group of news-spreading phrases. سر زبونها افتاد (sar-e zabunhâ oftâd) “it fell on tongues,” meaning everyone is talking about it. شایعه (shâye’e) is “rumor” in plain terms. خبر دهان به دهان (khabar-e dahân be dahân) “mouth-to-mouth news” is the cousin idiom, with mouths instead of ears. In English the closest fits are “all over town,” “everyone’s talking about it,” and “the news spread like wildfire.” The Persian version is more anatomical, more intimate, picturing actual ears bending toward each other across a whole noisy city of cousins, neighbors, and shopkeepers, each one passing the news along before lunch is over.
References
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