viernes, 19 de junio de 2020

Streets of gold and longanizas

I am updating, and improving my 1995 A Phraseological Dictionary, English and Spanish. The tools I have now greatly help my efforts: Online dictionaries, databases, Google Translate, DeepL, and others, but, alas, fraught with serious shortcomings. The labors of a bilingual lexicographer are manyfold, and they must be on the lookout for translations and equivalencies that pop up anywhere, anytime.
My Instagram colleague "adventuresafter70" was telling us about a trip to London and, at the end, she mentions that the streets in London are not paved with gold. It suddenly reminded me of "no atar los perros con longanizas." We may know both expressions, but the trick is to bring them together. The brain, after all, is not a computer hard disk. 

"Atar los perros con longanizas": Información exagerada acerca de la riqueza que disfruta un lugar.

"The streets are paved with gold": said about a place where it is easy to get rich, where people think riches are to be obtained.


"A cliche about San Francisco during the Gold Rush was that “its streets were paved with gold.” This was not literally true... San Francisco Chronicle, June 20, 2020

"Selby, where the streets are paved with gold." Citizen, June 12, 2020


"... el mundo nada en la abundancia y los perros se atan con longanizas." Cadena Ser, 15 junio, 2020
"¿que aquí atamos a los perros con longanizas?" El Correo de Andalucía, 9 junio, 2020

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