LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

 Abajo, unas citas interesantes sobre lo místico y lo espiritual, de mi Diccionario panhispánico de citas , de escritores en lengua española: “El hombre está hecho para insistir, para resistir –el que resiste gana, dice Cela-, y esos caudales de insistencia que guarda el hombre, sin saberlo, son los que descubre el místico, el asceta o el soldado.” Francisco Umbral, Diario político y sentimental , 1999.  “Ser asceta no significa ser místico.” José María Gironella, La duda inquietante , 1988.  “… en los últimos años mis lecturas de los místicos me han puesto en contacto con una cierta forma de espiritualidad que es muy enriquecedora. No estoy hablando aquí de un cuerpo de dogmas.” Juan Goytisolo en Juan Ramón Iborra, Confesionario , 2001.  “El místico que se funde con Dios experimenta fulgores especialísimos. Tan especiales, que resultan inmiscibles con las vivencias de la gente normal.” Álvaro Delgado-Gal, “La parte por el todo”, ABCD las Artes y las Letras, 29/12/20...

 "Si salimos de casa a la media, llegaremos a la estación en punto" y por media queremos decir "media hora", o sea, a los 30 minutos de una hora dada. El inglés, cómo no, también tiene ese concepto:  At the bottom of the hour , como se refleja en estas citaciones: — “…. before the hour of prayer, which commences at the half or bottom of the hour.” Christian Forums, January 12, 2022. US. || “ The latest world news headlines, as you would expect here at the bottom of the hour on CNN. ”   CNN, Connect the World, 10/24/2013. US. 

  This is to remind non-Spanish speakers that, regardless of what they may hear natives say, the preposition “a” is used when the direct object is a person (and very often when it is a pet). V. gr.: Vi a Pedro cruzar la calle. Di pan a mi perrita. No he dado dinero a nadie. Otherwise, the preposition is omitted: Vi el árbol que ha plantado Jacinto. Visitamos la ciudad en un par de horas. Prepositions are often complicated in any language, and even native speakers may falter in their usage.

  No haber por dónde coger a alguien (algo) significa en castellano el pobre concepto en que se tiene a una persona, podemos decir que "David no tiene arreglo, no tiene enmienda, no se puede depender de él, en suma: no hay por dónde cogerlo."  Be past praying for and a hopeless case would be good parallel expressions in English. However, there is a catch to the word "coger" which in Central America, Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico, Paraguay, Dominican Rep., Uruguay and Venezuela also means "realizar el acto sexual." Go figure, but a caveat to keep in mind in those countries, lest you raise eyebrows or elicit giggles.   David no trabaja, no estudia, y duerme todo el día, no hay por dónde cogerlo David doesn’t work, he doesn’t study, and sleeps all day, he is past praying for.

 I have always associated ends meet with the idiomatic phrase to make (both) ends meet , meaning the attempt to balance income and expenses. Yesterday, however, listening to Karoline Leavitt, Press Secretary in Trump’s administration, I was reminded of Elma Sáiz Delgado, spokesperson minister of the current Spanish communist government. Ms Leavitt, a rightist who does not mince words, attacks the left as peddlers of lies, fake news, and unethical behaviour. Her Spanish counterpart, Ms Sáiz Delgado, a socio-communist, uses precisely the same epithets against the so-called fascist right: lies, fake news, mudslinging. The political right and the political left prove that ends meet : at one end the right, at the other the left, yet both employ the very same irate vocabulary. That can only happen because opposites meet. Politically, I am wary of both “right” and “left”: they are merely reflections of one another. Different cultures, different languages, but the same political mindset. ...

  LANGUAGE AND SENILITY     Past fifty, a forgotten word feels like Alzheimer's knocking at the door. Names slip, words hide, and we panic: is senility beginning?     Alzheimer's frightens many more than cancer. Every day we hear of someone—friend, acquaintance, relative—slowly erased before our eyes. So when a word refuses to come, our hands grow clammy and dread takes over.     The other day I tried to recall a word from the opening of Kafka’s The Trial . I remembered a translation that used a sharper verb than “telling lies.” For twenty minutes on the bus, I tortured my brain. At home I checked: the word was traduce . Anxiety flooded in. Was this decline?     As if to mock me, I was then asked for the English of salpicadero . Nothing. Minutes later dashboard popped up, thumbing its nose.     We all fear forgetting. Tombstones promise remembrance because memory defines us—we are memory. In Homer’s Odyssey...