LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  President Richard Nixon said, "I am not a crook," and popularized the expression. The Spanish government is bringing back words and expressions that were dormant, like "tirar de la manta."  So many of the government´s members are either in jail, indicted, or investigated that the President fears one of them will finally blow the whistle on him, "tire de la manta" and expose all the dirt that might get him in the clink, behind bars. English has more idiomatic phrases to express this idea of telling on someone:  Take the lid off, pull the plug, blow the whistle, give the game away, let the cat out of the bag, and spill the beans. Mr. Pedro Sánchez, the present PM, might find it worthwhile to learn these English equivalents. If one of his colleagues ever decides to blow the whistle , spill the beans , or let the cat out of the bag , at least he will be familiar with the vocabulary of political scandals when he travels abroad.

 By now, all and sundry must know that I read with a pencil in hand to highlight passages, phrases, and words, both known and unknown.  or me, reading is an act of learning. I am well past halfway through Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead, and today I underlined the word midrift as odd-sounding. I underlined it and looked it up. Sure enough, the word should be spelt midriff , "the middle part of the body, between the chest and the waist." Ms. Kingsolver says at the end of her novel: "Every draft of this book was improved by advice from insightful readers..." and names a few of them. The author might reply and remind us that the narrator is, on page 302, only 15. The argument will not hold water because Demon uses ten-dollar words throughout,  far more difficult than midriff.  Unless the misspelling was deliberate—and I doubt it—it appears to have slipped past both the author and her readers.  

I often hear "We don't say that in English" and, in Spanish, "Eso no se dice en español" from the lips of native speakers who, as I have often said, are a language's worst enemies. I have also often paraphrased Ortega's idea that the horizon of our language is not the horizon of language itself. There is always more beyond the limits of our own linguistic knowledge. The average native speaker is convinced that if he or she has never heard a word or turn of phrase, it simply does not exist. Take the idiom to the manner born , for example. It may be rendered in Spanish as venir de buena cuna , ser de buena cuna , or ser de alcurnia . Here is a recent example: "Ian Fleming was to the manner born. His grandfather was one of the wealthiest merchant bankers..." ( Los Angeles Times , April 4, 2024). And, just in case a native English speaker still has doubts about its genuineness, here is another citation: "Geoff Cowan was, in many respects, to...

  Señora, como the lady of the house , la señora de la casa. Ladies and gentlemen , señoras y señores. The first Lady , la primera dama. Es el equivalente femenino de gentleman , caballero, señor. Una persona puede ser a woman , pero no a lady, puede ser mujer pero no una señora. Estas son cuestiones sociales más que lingüísticas. Margaret is a real lady , Margaret es una verdadera señora. En Inglaterra es también un título nobiliario, el femenino de Lord : Lady Margaret Thatcher. Lady Di.  Nunca nos dirigiremos a una señora diciéndole lady , sino madam o ma’am. Si es muy joven, Miss o young lady basta y sobra.  

  KITCHEN / CUISINE El sitio donde guisamos es kitchen ;  el tipo de comida que guisamos es cuisine : French cuisine, Italian cuisine. En ambos casos en castellano es cocina. 

 I am a people watcher. When I walk down the street or sit on a park bench, I often gaze at passers-by, especially couples who, to my eye, seem oddly mismatched. Then I reflect on how English and Spanish express the idea behind matchmaking and the mysterious ways in which people find their mates for life. We often wonder how those two coming down the path ever got together, let alone married. Mystery of mysteries. A Spaniard might shrug and say, "Siempre hay un roto para un descosido," perhaps accompanied by a deep sigh. Or, "Dios los cría y ellos se juntan." In English, we may say that "there's a lid for every pot." Less commonly, "there's a shoe for every foot." My favorite, however, is "there's an ass for every saddle." In my A Phraseological Dictionary, English-Spanish , I document these expressions with bona fide citations, lest some smart-aleck imagine that I have invented them.