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.