martes, 21 de junio de 2022
EL RETO DE ESCRIBIR Y PUBLICAR
lunes, 20 de junio de 2022
HERE´S YOUR HAT... WHAT´S YOUR HURRY?
The English and Spanish-speaking worlds have the same attitude toward visitors who stay longer than patience would tolerate, and thus we have sayings like “visitas, pocas y cortitas”, and “fish and guests stink after three days.” (Delfín Carbonell, Dictionary of Proverbs, Barron´s, 1998). In the Bible (Proverbs, 25:18) we read: “Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbor’s house, lest he be weary of thee, and so hate thee.” This attitude has been the butt of jokes for centuries and language has invented expressions to say for the hosts to rid themselves of unwanted, pestering visitors. One such in Spanish is: Vámonos a la cama que estos señores se querrán marchar which is by no means subtle, or even polite, but it has been used plenty of times. And, of course, there´s a parallelism in here´s your hat, what´s your hurry? Which The Free Dictionary defines as “A humorous phrased used to encourage someone to leave.” It has been attributed to Winston Churchill. It is the title of Elizabeth McCracken Novel (1997) Here´s your Hat, What´s your Hurry? Neither phraseological unit will be found in bilingual dictionaries.
domingo, 19 de junio de 2022
I WANT NEVER GETS
What is the bilingual lexicographer to do with the phrase: ante el vicio de pedir, la virtud de no dar, with its variation contra el vicio de pedir, está la virtud de no dar? Collins very wisely abstains. Tureng Dictionary online poses an answer which, although not bad, gets no cigar again: “a shameless beggar must have a short denial”, taken from the Centro Virtual Cervantes, which is never to be trusted. WordPerfect passes, and even Seco´s Diccionario fraseológico keeps mum on this one. And so on. There must be a similar way to express the rebuff we must give those “gimme pigs” in English, now that we know how to do so in Spanish. How about I want doesn´t get, or I want never gets? In Brewtiful (Sept. 13, 2011) a mother says: “How many times have you all heard this phrase? I was always one of these people that said I would never be like mum, I would never say the things she said and now I found myself saying them all the time… Without fail though my favorite phrase comes out, “I want doesn't get”, I even annoy myself when I say it.” If this mum (mom) had been a Spanish speaker she would have said to her child: contra el vicio de pedir, está la virtud de no dar.” We still have another possibility in English: gimme, gimme, never gets, don´t you know your manners yet? Unfortunately, this question has a retort: Yes, I do, but not today, so gimme, gimme anyways.
miércoles, 8 de junio de 2022
NEVER-ENDING STORIES
Let me tell you a shaggy-dog story, a drawn-out story or narrative that leads nowhere and tries the patience of the listener. In Through the Grapevine, 2001, we read: “In a shaggy-dog story, the teller draws out the story, adding a lot of detail. When the story finally ends, some trick is involved.” And another citation: “The Huntchback´s Tale is, after all, a shaggy dog story that goes nowhere.” (Ulrich Marzolph, et. al., The Arabian Night´s Encyclopedia, 2004.) WordReference paraphrases it as “una historia larga y aburrida”. Reverso tells us it is “un chiste malo”, or chestnut, which, although true, is not the equivalent we are seeking. Collins insists on “chiste largo y pesado.” We cannot seriously accept “historias de perro peludo” as a Google possibility. However, we must take “cuento de la buena pipa” as the parallel equivalent of the English phrase we are dealing with. El cuento de la buena pipa, is a never-ending story that, like its English counterpart, leads nowhere. Marta Portal explains in her novel Pago de traición (1983): “… como el cuento de la buena pipa que consiste en quererlo contar y no en saberlo, en incitar a escucharlo y en que nunca lleguen a oírlo.” And Javier Marías in his bestseller Corazón tan blanco (1992), comments: “¿Quieres que te cuente el cuento de la buena pipa, decía mi abuela con malicia.” A never-ending story, a long-drawn-out yarn is a shaggy-dog story in English and el cuento de la buena pipa in Spanish.
viernes, 3 de junio de 2022
CITACIONES Y LOS DICCIONARIOS
jueves, 2 de junio de 2022
QUIEN VA A SEVILLA...
Quien va a Sevilla... lo pasa muy bien porque es una ciudad de encanto y ensueño y porque los sevillanos son simpáticos y cariñosos. Ahí es nada. Pero, claro, la frase idiomática es: quien va a Sevilla, pierde su silla, que en América tiene la variante: quien va a la villa, pierde su silla, indicando que el que se va, el que no atiende, el que no está donde debe estar, pierde. Pero los anglófonos (esos que hablan inglés) tienen su equivalente, para no ser menos, aunque los diccionarios bilingües no se hayan enterado: move your feet, lose your seat, que también tiene variantes, como move your meat, lose your seat. Así que, a soltarles la frase a los ingleses o norteamericanos.
SPANISH POSSESSIVES
Spanish does not use possessives with parts of the body: Me duelen los ojos, my eyes hurt; tengo la nariz grande, my nose is big; tenemos el pelo largo, our hair is long
After a conjugated verb, we use the infinitive. You cannot say quiero voy but quiero ir. Quiero leer y entender francés: I want to read and understand French. Me gusta leer, I like to read / I like reading. (From Spanish Grammar Cheat-Sheet, Editatum, Guiaburros, 2021.)
miércoles, 1 de junio de 2022
USING SPANISH PERSONAL PRONOUNS
Native speakers seldom use personal pronouns, except for emphasis: Canto en la ducha instead of yo canto en la ducha, as the ending -o means yo. Thus it is essential to memorize the tenses without the pronouns
Canto en la ducha: I sing in the shower
Comemos en un restaurante: We eat at a restaurant
Vive en Hong Kong: She/he lives in Hong Kong
(From Laura Carbonell´s Spanish Grammar Cheat-sheet, Editatum, 2021)