LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  A los ricos, que en inglés se les conoce como "the rich", se les envidia y odia porque tienen dinero, viven bien, no pasan necesidades, son más guapos, y tienen parejas más atractivas. Al contrario que a los pobres, no se les coloca en un pedestal y son objeto de la crítica feroz por parte de las religiones. Sin embargo, todos queremos ser ricos y por eso participamos toda suerte de juegos de azar. Veamos alguna fraseología en ambos idiomas sobre la palabra rico: Be filthy rich Estar podrido de dinero, forrado, ricacho, ricachón My girlfriend’s father is filthy rich El padre de mi novia está podrido de dinero — “People all over the world kill themselves for all kinds of reasons -- children, old people, the dirt poor, even the filthy rich.” Thestranger.com., 2012. US. Fools live poor to die rich Morir rico y vivir pobre Spend your money now, fools live poor to die rich Gástate el dinero ahora, no vivas pobre para morir rico — “Fools live poor to die rich.” G.G....

 Los pobres tienen buena prensa desde que las religiones nos pusieron en un pedestal. Yo soy pobre, pobre, de esos de llevar remiendos en los pantalones y de dar envidia a las ratas, y sé mucho de este tema. Unos ejemplos en inglés y castellano sobre la fraseología del pobre: A (the) poor man’s… De pobres… The bike is a poor man’s transportation La bici es transporte de pobres — “I grew up hunting, but it was poor man’s hunting. Mainly rabbits…” thereluctunctpaladin.com, 11/2012. US. Be dirt poor Ser pobre de solemnidad, pobretón, paupérrimo I’m dirt poor and eat only once a day Soy pobre de solemnidad y sólo como una vez al día — “People all over the world kill themselves for all kinds of reasons -- children, old people, the dirt poor, even the filthy rich. ” Thestranger.com., 2012. US. Better poor than… Antes pobre que… Better poor than a liar Antes pobre que mentiroso — “Better poor than honest. The rich are bad.” Enterpreneur, February 19, 2025. US. ...

People mistakenly believe that Spanish is easy and pronounced as it is written. Nothing farther from the truth. It has complicated grammar  and complex phonetics which graphemes cannot always reflect. The final /d/ in educated everyday conversation is often silent and we write "libertad" but pronounce it /libertá/ just as we spell majesty "majestad" but say /majestá/. "Amabilidad" ends up as "amabilidá" and "cordialidad" /cordialidá/ and pay no heed to those who might tell you otherwise. I refer you, as usual, to Tomás Navarro Tomás, "Manual de pronunciación española". And likewise, the /j/ of "reloj" is lost, and we say /reló/. Those who say /reloh/ are mockingly called "redichos". In the plural "relojes" the /j/ is pronounced. 

  The title of this post has probably led you to believe you were in for a mystery story, some sort of a whodunit or  post-noire   dealing with the labyrinth of language and its dark riddles. If so, you have been had, taken to the cleaner’s, sold a bill of goods, sold down the river and taken in. These idiomatic expressions are apt simply because you jumped the gun and to conclusions. We are told, remember, never to judge a book by its cover, or by its title, may I add, because titles are often misleading. “Death in Venice” is not a detective novel; “Metamorphosis” is not about lepidoptera; “The Idiot” has nothing to do with oligophrenia; “Nausea” is not a description of feeling unwell; “The Magic Mountain” has nothing to do with the outdoors… in fact, most titles reveal little about contents, and mine today, The Ferrys Wheel Mystery, even more.

  W.H. Fowler (1858-1933) was a grammarian, lexicographer, author of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage , and... a card! In his entry for "free", he says "a person who is not a slave, or serf" and gives examples: "At last I am a free man, i.e. have retired from business, lost my wife, etc." No comment. But I am interested in the word as some sort of suffix: "pain-free", "error-free", "glitch-free", "gluten-free", "sugar-free" which can be translated as "libre de" or "sin": "sin azúcar", "libre de errores", "sin dolor, indoloro"... It has many possibilities that Fowler did not delve into and which we should take advantage of. 

  Phone communications in Spain have been colonized by South Americans. Often, the speaker trying to convince me to change my power or gas company resides in Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, or Honduras. More often than not, I must ask the caller to repeat their discourse because I cannot understand. Aside from intonation, the problem lies in the way fricative sounds are made. For instance, if the Sp anish /d/ is fricative, or soft, the American speaker makes it even softer, almost imperceptible. "Le he dado" may sound to me as "leao", which means nothing at first hearing. This is neither good nor bad, but the nature of sounds in languages. Of all the millions of possibilities and variations Spanish sounds possess, I have been in touch with very few. But I am very astute and always looking for a free lunch, and I ask where the speaker is from. A cheap and easy way to learn phonetics and sound variations.