PHRASE SLEUTH

 

Just as there are word detectives (Cf. John Simpson´s The Word Detective), I have become a Bilingual Phrase Sleuth. I track, trace, and nail down equivalent phrases in English and Spanish. Traits to become a lexicographic bilingual phrase sleuth are stubbornness, hard work, constant alertness, reading, time, and carloads of patience. Pay no heed to those who praise the wonders of the internet and databanks sky high. We still have a long way to go in bilingual lexicography. While we wait for the Internet and Google to become linguistically serious, let me tell you an English idiom: Get up on one´s hind legs,  become assertive, aggressive, belligerent, etc., according to Webster´s New World Dictionary, 2nd Ed.  "McBride then got up on his hind legs and told them he and his mates would kiss what girls they wanted to." (Louis A. Mayer, Under the Jolly Roger, 2007.) "David finally got up on his hind legs and told the boss what he thought of him."

The phrase sleuth has to be on the look-out at all times and sniff the language winds for possible equivalents, such as Echar las patas por alto, defined by María Moliner as "Dar rienda suelta al enfado que se siente, gritando o en cualquier otra format violenta." El Mundo (15/01/1995.) we may read: "Y than decidido echar las patas por alto y crear un caos..."

Echar las patas por alto = Get up on one´s hind legs. And the mystery is solved.