JORGE SANTAYANA AND LITERATURA

 

"The sole advantage in possessing great works of literature lies in what they can help us to become." Introduction, Three Philosophical Poets.

WHY DICCIONARIO DE ARGOT, EL SOHEZ

I asked Camilo José Cela for a brief prologue to my 1997 An English and Spanish Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional Language. He wrote it and asked me to his place in Puerta de Hierro several times. I showed him a few pages of my project on a Spanish Dictionary of Slang. Cela liked it but suggested I use backup citations for every entry. Foolhardily I dived into the project not realizing the amount of work it was to take. After two years and reading over 800 books, I had the manuscript ready. Víctor García de la Concha, then Director of the Real Academia Española, refused to allow me to use the CREA or CORDE, data bases that were almost ready for public use. I went to the Academia's library every day, from 10 to 1, for a month, to check the citation files. In 2000 Larousse published Gran Diccionario del argot, el sohez. McGraw-Hill brought out the US edition and Ediciones del Serbal also published two additional editions. 

Cela suggested I use the word soez for the dictionary. I just could not bring myself to contradict the Nobel Prize winner. Luckily I found the possibility of using sohez, and in the Introduction I explain its etymology and definition.

FIESTA DE LA HISPANIDAD

 

The Hispanic world celebrates today La Fiesta de la Hispanidad, when the Americas were discovered from a European point of view. World history has not been the same since. In 1992, Europe witnessed, in awe and perplexity, the discovery of a New World. A new world, imagine! It left Europeans in shock. And here we are, celebrating the melding of cultures and traditions using one language, Spanish. So, Feliz Día de la Hispanidad y Fiesta Nacional,12 de octubre.      

THE STORY OF A PHRASEOLOGICAL DICTIONARY - ENGLISH-SPANISH

When I was a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Mario Pei, Mellon Visiting Professor, a renowned linguist, and expert on comparative linguistics, asked me to write a paper on English-Spanish idioms. Later, at Scranton University, I expanded that work and compiled many index cards, which I took, in files, to Franklin and Marshall College, where I joined the Modern Language Department. When I moved to Madrid, all those cards were left behind and later lost in a fire. In 1995 Ediciones del Serbal published my A Phraseological Dictionary, English-Spanish, 383 pp. with the aid of an IBM PC1 computer. I was not wholly satisfied and wanted to rewrite it and make it a complete work on comparative phraseology, and in 2020 I found time to roll up my sleeves, spit on my hands, and finish the task once and for all. Now, with 34,000 idioms, 68,000 usage examples in both languages, 7,000 citations, and 1.530 pages, I am confident I have compiled the ultimate bilingual phraseological Dictionary. The final step is to find the right publisher who can bring this work to a wide audience. 

LA PROMESA - TELEVISIÓN ESPAÑOLA

Es difícil escribir sobre épocas pasadas, especialmente si no se tiene una cultura lingüística en el propio idioma en el que se escribe. En La promesa, serie de Televisión Española, muy bien ambientada y con actores estupendos, y magnífica fotografía, adolece de rigor lingüístico. Los guionistas ponen vocablos y fraseología contemporánea, o foránea, en boca de sus personajes. La marquesa habla constantemente de "milongas", a principios del siglo XX y no precisamente de canciones, cuando esa acepción, la de historias, cuentos, es muy posterior. Sus importaciones de contrabando de fraseología inglesa son notorias: la curiosidad mató al gato, muchas maneras de despellejar a un gato, por ejemplo, del inglés: curiosity killed the cat y there's more than one way to skin a cat. Espero que los señores guionistas no estén practicando lo que yo denomino word-lifting o idiom-lifting. Me recuerda esto a las películas de romanos, de Hollywood, donde se veían a centuriones romanos con relojes de pulsera. 

WORD-LIFTING

 

Just as a shoplifter is "a person who steals goods from the shelves or displays of a retail store while posing as a customer", a word-lifter is a plagiarist who steals words, definitions, or examples from dictionaries while posing as a lexicographer. In my work, I must consult and check different dictionaries and I have often encountered this activity of pilfering others' work. Yesterday, while checking my Random House dictionary, I found an example for "do it up brown": "When they entertain, they really do it up brown." And, lo and behold, Collins online dictionary has the same example: "When they entertain, they really do it up brown." Coincidence? Intertextuality? Pilfering? Wordlifting? Plagiarism? God only knows who, by the way, has a special section in hell reserved for word-lifters of every kind.    

THE SPANISH AVISO A NAVEGANTES

Aviso a (para) navegantes is an important (stern, serious) notice or warning, red flag. On the Internet, we find English equivalents to the tune of notice to skippers, mariners, or warnings to seafarers or surfers, all wrong literal translations. 

"Así que, ¡ojo! y aviso a navegantes, el futuro..." La Voz de la Afición, nº 18, 10/2001. Esp. || "Lo que está haciendo el gobierno puede constituir un aviso para navegantes." El País, 21/05/1997. Esp.

STOWAWAY PHRASEOLOGY

 Plenty of stowaway idioms come into Spanish in the ship of translations and translators. I have read this immigrant phrase in Spanish Después del caballo hurtado, cerrar la caballeriza mirroring  the original Too late to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted. In Spanish we would say, with the same meaning, muerto el burro, la cebada al rabo. 

I am trying to give serious equivalents to phraseological units in my Phraseological Dictionary, English-Spanish, which is almost completed. 

EL CIERZO DE LA VIDA

 El cierzo de la vida sopla fuerte para mí en estos tiempos y no hay más remedio que resistir porque, como decía Camilo José Cela, el que resiste gana aunque sepamos de antemano que tenemos perdida la partida de la vida. Y recordamos al Paul Verlain de mis años universitarios: Et je m'en vais au vent mauvais qui m'emporte deçà, delà, pareil à la feuille morte. Y por fín quand sonne l'heure, je me souviens  des jours ancienes et je pleur.

REFRANES POLIZONES

 

Consultándolo con cierta frecuencia estos días, me da que el refranero del Instituto Cervantes, y los que lo redactan, están colando de extranjis más de un refrán o proverbio foráneo, dándonos gato por liebre e introduciéndolos de polizones. Muchos cocineros estropean el caldo es, en este momento, el caso en cuestión. Buscando y rebuscando sólo encontraremos la frase en el Instituto Cervantes y dando como equivalente el verdadero origen que es too many cooks spoil the broth, que podría interpretarse por Un médico duda, dos curan tres muerte segura; muchas manos en un plato hacen mucho garabato; entre unos y otros y la casa sin barrer; obra de común, obra de ningún. Estos refranes polizones abundan más de lo que creemos, ojo al parche. El refrán inglés tiene solera y, claro, diferentes versiones, como la de George Gascoigne (Life of Carew, 1575): the more cooks, the worse pottage.