LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

 Have you ever felt the sudden urge to slip away from a boisterous party? Or that creeping cabin fever that drives you out the door and far from the family hubbub? To make yourself scarce, to quit the scene quietly—without ceremony, without goodbyes? English has a piquant idiom for it: to take French leave . The striking feature is not the act itself, but the finger it points. The French, we are told, are to blame for this lapse in manners. But the French are not so docile. They retaliate with filer à l’anglaise —“to slip away English-style”—squarely laying the charge at Britain’s door. And then come the Spaniards, who tilt the scale in favor of the Brits and say despedirse a la francesa —“to say goodbye in the French manner.” Once again, it is the French who bear the brunt of the discourtesy. In both French and Spanish usage, the act implies bad manners: one ought to take leave properly. In the United States, however, slipping out quietly may be seen as a considerate gesture—a...

Partes de la anatomía humana son tabú en la conversación finolis. Sin embargo, el idioma crea todo tipo de alternativas, de eufemismos más o menos conseguidos para referirse a esa parte de la anatomía humana que se pueda considerar tabú. La parte inferior de la espalda se conoce como nalgas, que tiene, tanto en lenguaje estándar como vulgar, numerosas posibilidades. Las que reseño aquí tienen autenticidad escrita en mi Gran diccionario del argot: el sohez . Veamos: asentaderas, brisero, bul, bull, bulla, bullarengue, cacas, cachas, calicatas, culamen, culata, culera, culete, culibajo, culo, cachetes del culo, culo de pera, culo gordo, culón, culona, donde la espalda pierde su casto nombre, fondillo, fullín, glúteos, jebe, nalgas, nalgatorio, pandero, pompis, popa, popó, posaderas, posteridad, rabo, retaguardia, retambufa, rulé, saco, saco de la mierda, superculo, tirapedos, tras, trasero. La lista podría seguir, porque el lenguaje no conoce límites cuando se trata de rodear lo que no s...

The piropo was once the order of the day on Spanish streets. As social attitudes have evolved, this type of street compliment has largely faded, or at least become far less publicly acceptable. As a child, my mother and I would walk to meet my father. On the way, we passed a military barracks where a Spanish GI stood on guard. One day he addressed a piropo to my mother. Small as I was, I turned around and kicked his shin so hard that, startled, he dropped the rifle he was holding. I have never tolerated men harassing women. Spanish, however, remains lexically inventive when it comes to describing female attractiveness — sometimes playful, sometimes coarse, often revealing of a cultural attitude that blends admiration with objectification. MUJER atractiva cf. (afines): bollicao, bollo, bomba, bombón, bombonazo, buenorra, como un camión, cañón, cañonazo, chorba, para comérsela, esculpida, estupenda, guaperas, jaca, maciza, monada, monumento, de bandera, negraza, perchas, perita en dul...

Humankind is aggressive—physically and verbally—and both forms are dangerous. Verbal aggression in the shape of insults is widespread across languages, and I would venture to suggest that son of a bitch is one of the most widespread of them, at least in the Western world. I stand to be corrected. The expression has generated its euphemisms. In English, we find softened variants such as son of a bee , son of a biscuit , the jocular son of a gun , and the abbreviation SOB . One newspaper writes: “…but he is a damn son of a bee and yet I am very happy he was not killed” (News 24, November 24, 2017, U.S.). Y, claro, el castellano también recurre a atenuaciones del antiguo hijo de puta : hijo de pu , hijo de la Gran Bretaña , hijo de su madre … expresiones que suenan menos fuertes. The pattern itself— son of a + X , hijo de + X —is strikingly productive. Needless to say, I reject both such verbal aggression and violence in all its forms.

  “To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,” Hamlet tells us, with his usual gift for turning a simple human activity into a metaphysical problem. Sleep, it seems, is never just sleep. How many hours should we sleep? Six? Seven? Eight? Nobody quite agrees. What does seem clear is that people like sleeping a lot—or at least, they like talking about it. Both Spanish and English offer a generous range of expressions to describe sleeping more than what is considered normal, whatever normal may be. Spanish, for instance, is particularly imaginative. One can dormir a pierna suelta , or sleep como un lirón, una marmota, un santo, un bendito, un leño, un tronco, un ceporro , or simply profundamente . The sleeper is likened, variously, to animals, holy figures, and large, immobile objects—none of them especially alert. English is no less resourceful. One may sleep like a log , sleep soundly , or sleep like a baby, a top, a rock, a princess, the dead, or a stone . Here, too, ...

  HORROR Gustar horrores (un horror)  Like an awful lot Marta me gusta horrores I like Martha an awful lot — “La salsa, sin embargo, me gusta horrores.” Antonio Vergara, Comer en el país valencià , 1981. Esp. Tener horror a Dread, fear, have a horror of Le tengo horror al trabajo I dread work — “… sobre todas las cosas, el diablo tiene horror a la sal.” Alberto Cousté, Biografía del Diablo , 1978. Arg. Un horror A sight Margarita es un horror Margaret is a sight — “¡Este niño es un horror, señora!" El Mundo, 20/08/1994. Esp.