LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  "... COMO ES SABIDO, NACER ES EMPEZAR A MORIR." Enrique Vila-Matas, Historia abreviada de la literatura portátil , 1985. (Delfín Carbonell,  Diccionario panhispánico de citas , 2008. Prólogo de Enrique Vila-Matas, "El lujo de las citas.")

  In 1997, a reviewer lamented that most of my material in  A Dictionary of Proverbs, Spanish and English,  was "British." I had compiled that dictionary with the English language in mind, not considering nationalities. Proverbs in the English language do not carry passports. Why this? It has been brought to my attention (Vicky Ascorve Harper) that Mr. Sean Griffiths mentioned in The Sunday Times, 22 May, 2014, that Mr. Micael Gove, education secretary, has decided to drop American writers from the new English list of GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education). He wishes British students to read British writers. Writers do have nationalities, but their main allegiance is to language, regardless of place of birth. Naipaul, Patrick White, Alice Munro, Tagore, Yeats, G. Bernard Shaw, and Hemingway were born in Jamaica, Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. Yet we all read those Nobel Prize winners in English. They hav...

  "SÓLO AVANZANDO HACIA ATRÁS SE PUEDE LLEGAR AL FUTURO." Augusto Roa Bastos, Vigilia del almirante , 1992. (Delfín Carbonell,  Diccionario panhispánico de citas , 2008. Prólogo de Enrique Vila-Matas, "El lujo de las citas.")

"LOS DEMAGOGOS HAN SIDO LOS GRANDES ESTRANGULADORES DE CIVILIZACIONES."  José Ortega y Gasset, La rebelión de las masas , 1929. (Delfín Carbonell,  Diccionario panhispánico de citas , 2008. Prólogo de Enrique Vila-Matas, "El lujo de las citas.")

A veces nos sorprende cuando nuestro interlocutor trastoca sonidos y parece cambiar palabras. Es un fenómeno normal en el idioma, que ha existido siempre, hasta en latín y griego. La metátesis es una figura de dicción que aparece por transposición, cuando se trastocan las letras, los sonidos, de las palabras y cambian de lugar como si de un baile fonético se tratase. Uno de los elementos acústicos influye sobre los otros y se colocan en su lugar. Es un fenómeno del lenguaje en general y se manifiesta en latín, castellano, francés e inglés y suponemos que en muchos otros idiomas. NAIDE                      por nadie ESTÓGAMO            por estómago COCRETA                por croqueta PRESIGNARSE        por  persignarse CAN...

  "... TENÍA UNA IDEA ABSURDA DE SU MARIDO; LO CONSIDERABA COMO UN PORTENTO." Pío Baroja, El árbol de la ciencia , 1911. (Delfín Carbonell,  Diccionario panhispánico de citas , 2008. Prólogo de Enrique Vila-Matas, "El lujo de las citas.")

  "SÓLO LAS CABEZAS SENCILLAS, O LAS AYUNAS DE CURIOSIDAD FILOSÓFICA O CIENTÍFICA GOZAN DEL REPOSO Y LA FE." Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Recuerdos de mi vida , 1901. (Delfín Carbonell,  Diccionario panhispánico de citas , 2008. Prólogo de Enrique Vila-Matas, "El lujo de las citas.")

     Spanish and English are spoken in many different countries and have many varieties, so the question often arises: Which variety is the best to study?      The point is very tenable because most people are confused, and rightly so when confronted with a difficult choice in the case of English: American English or British English? Most Europeans believe that, of course, real English is the one spoken in the British Isles and that American English is a bastard tongue. I believe the British think so too - I do not.  The case of Spanish is even more complicated. In the US, the language has been neatly divided into two distinct varieties: South American Spanish and Peninsular Spanish.   However, the question cannot be dismissed so easily and neatly.  Each country has its peculiarities: the Spanish spoken in Mexico is not the same as the Spanish spoken in Argentina or Paraguay, all of which are Latin American nations. The Cuban accent is not th...

Se nos dice que debemos evitar la   voz pasiva   en lengua inglesa siempre que sea posible y ahora resulta que en lengua española se está imponiendo especialmente en los medios de difusión.  La voz activa, que es lo apropiado en español, es la posibilidad de ser directos, claros, concisos... y activos. He compilado unos ejemplos de la televisión: --"Una mujer es herida muy grave por disparos..." (TVE1, 27/8/14) Hieren a una mujer por disparos queda mejor... --"Un experto de CAE es trasladado a EE.UU. por sospecha de ébola." (TVE1 28/8/14.) Trasladan a EE.UU. a un experto... --"Flores primer ministro en ser arrestado ..." (TV1, 6/9/14.) ¿Cómo arreglamos esto? -- "Aceves ha sido llamado por el juez para..." (Antena 3, 29/9/14) El juez llama a Aceves para... -- "El Presidente de Panamá será recibido por el rey Felipe VI..." (TVE1, 7/9/14.) El rey Felipe VI recibirá al presidente... -- "La vicepresidenta del gobierno ha sido pregun...

  Gracias a Laura Carbonell, estoy leyendo "Letters", de Oliver Sacks (Alfred A. Knopf, 2024), editadas por su secretaria de toda la vida Kate Edgard. Sigo a este neurólogo desde que leí "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat", en 1985, y leo y releo con mucha frecuencia los libros que poseo de él, particularmente "On the Move" (2015) y "Gratitud" (2015). Leo esta correspondencia a trompicones, sin orden ni concierto, según me da. Hoy he abierto la página 479 con la carta a una madre oyente de un hijo sordo. El niño tiene que aprender el lenguaje de signos, que es otro idioma (recordemos que hay lengua de signos inglesa, estadounidense, española, mexicana...) y entresaco: "... there should be really good first language - given this, everything else can follow. Bilingualism, trilingualism, good intellectual development. The overwhelming danger is NOT achieving a good first language..." Of course, Sacks is referring to sign language but ...

  A los ricos, que en inglés se les conoce como "the rich", se les envidia y odia porque tienen dinero, viven bien, no pasan necesidades, son más guapos, y tienen parejas más atractivas. Al contrario que a los pobres, no se les coloca en un pedestal y son objeto de la crítica feroz por parte de las religiones. Sin embargo, todos queremos ser ricos y por eso participamos toda suerte de juegos de azar. Veamos alguna fraseología en ambos idiomas sobre la palabra rico: Be filthy rich Estar podrido de dinero, forrado, ricacho, ricachón My girlfriend’s father is filthy rich El padre de mi novia está podrido de dinero — “People all over the world kill themselves for all kinds of reasons -- children, old people, the dirt poor, even the filthy rich.” Thestranger.com., 2012. US. Fools live poor to die rich Morir rico y vivir pobre Spend your money now, fools live poor to die rich Gástate el dinero ahora, no vivas pobre para morir rico — “Fools live poor to die rich.” G.G....

 Los pobres tienen buena prensa desde que las religiones nos pusieron en un pedestal. Yo soy pobre, pobre, de esos de llevar remiendos en los pantalones y de dar envidia a las ratas, y sé mucho de este tema. Unos ejemplos en inglés y castellano sobre la fraseología del pobre: A (the) poor man’s… De pobres… The bike is a poor man’s transportation La bici es transporte de pobres — “I grew up hunting, but it was poor man’s hunting. Mainly rabbits…” thereluctunctpaladin.com, 11/2012. US. Be dirt poor Ser pobre de solemnidad, pobretón, paupérrimo I’m dirt poor and eat only once a day Soy pobre de solemnidad y sólo como una vez al día — “People all over the world kill themselves for all kinds of reasons -- children, old people, the dirt poor, even the filthy rich. ” Thestranger.com., 2012. US. Better poor than… Antes pobre que… Better poor than a liar Antes pobre que mentiroso — “Better poor than honest. The rich are bad.” Enterpreneur, February 19, 2025. US. ...

People mistakenly believe that Spanish is easy and pronounced as it is written. Nothing farther from the truth. It has complicated grammar  and complex phonetics which graphemes cannot always reflect. The final /d/ in educated everyday conversation is often silent and we write "libertad" but pronounce it /libertá/ just as we spell majesty "majestad" but say /majestá/. "Amabilidad" ends up as "amabilidá" and "cordialidad" /cordialidá/ and pay no heed to those who might tell you otherwise. I refer you, as usual, to Tomás Navarro Tomás, "Manual de pronunciación española". And likewise, the /j/ of "reloj" is lost, and we say /reló/. Those who say /reloh/ are mockingly called "redichos". In the plural "relojes" the /j/ is pronounced. 

  The title of this post has probably led you to believe you were in for a mystery story, a whodunit or  post-noire   dealing with the labyrinth of language and its dark riddles. If so, you have been had, taken to the cleaner’s, sold a bill of goods, sold down the river, and taken in. These idiomatic expressions are apt simply because you jumped the gun and to conclusions. We are told, remember, never to judge a book by its cover, or by its title, may I add, because titles are often misleading. “Death in Venice” is not a detective novel; “Metamorphosis” is not about lepidoptera; “The Idiot” has nothing to do with oligophrenia; “Nausea” is not a description of feeling unwell; “The Magic Mountain” has nothing to do with the outdoors… in fact, most titles reveal little about contents, and mine today, The Ferrys Wheel Mystery, even more.

  W.H. Fowler (1858-1933) was a grammarian, lexicographer, author of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage , and... a card! In his entry for "free", he says "a person who is not a slave, or serf" and gives examples: "At last I am a free man, i.e. have retired from business, lost my wife, etc." No comment. But I am interested in the word as some sort of suffix: "pain-free", "error-free", "glitch-free", "gluten-free", "sugar-free" which can be translated as "libre de" or "sin": "sin azúcar", "libre de errores", "sin dolor, indoloro"... It has many possibilities that Fowler did not delve into and which we should take advantage of. 

  Phone communications in Spain have been colonized by South Americans. Often, the speaker trying to convince me to change my power or gas company resides in Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, or Honduras. More often than not, I must ask the caller to repeat their discourse because I cannot understand. Aside from intonation, the problem lies in the way fricative sounds are made. For instance, if the Sp anish /d/ is fricative, or soft, the American speaker makes it even softer, almost imperceptible. "Le he dado" may sound to me as "leao", which means nothing at first hearing. This is neither good nor bad, but the nature of sounds in languages. Of all the millions of possibilities and variations Spanish sounds possess, I have been in touch with very few. But I am very astute and always looking for a free lunch, and I ask where the speaker is from. A cheap and easy way to learn phonetics and sound variations. 

  Isn't this a catchy and luring title? How to boost memory! We all want to improve our retention of... what? Phone numbers, people's names, birthdays, faces, words, street names, appointments? You name it because despite all the fanfare and ballyhoo about technology, we still have to remember a person's name, and her face even, if we want to make it in business or the academic world. We must not forget our way back home, what bus line to take, to cross on green and not on red... memory, memory, memory! And now we must come down to earth with a bump and be honest with you: I have no idea how to boost memory. I do not even know what memory is, where it is, and how it works. This is painful to admit, especially because I try to memorize expressions, and words, in English and Spanish daily. I use all the tricks of the trade: mnemonic techniques, copying by hand, repeating out loud, closing my eyes and visualizing words, making lists... the works. And I have been at this for ov...

  I have heard many repeat the Spanish saying "The ilusión también se vive" which I have in my Phraseological Dictionary as have pipe dreams, hope springs eternal (in the human breast), which satisfies me not. Somehow I am reminded of Emily Dickinson and her "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul..." and I think she means "ilusión" and not "esperanza", because "ilusión" carries with it not only hope but the eager expectation of a happy occurrence. "Ilusión", in Castillian, is truly that thing with feathers that perches in our soul and motivates us to carry on, dream, plan, and be cheerful and joyful. No less. Why these lines? Probably because lately, I feel I have lost not hope, but "ilusión" - that eager expectation of something joyful to come. I would change the saying above to "sin ilusión no se vive."  

As a Spanish suffix, ista forms nouns and adjectives for professions and trades: máquina, maquinista; taxi, taxista; eléctrico, electricista.  It is even used to define those who follow a certain politician: trumpista, sanchista, franquista, estalinista, maoista, and more. And los negacionistas, niegan, just as globalistas believe in globalization. Los progresistas say they love the poor and levy more taxes to help them and themselves.  I hope this helps. Thank you.  

  Escaldar means to burn with a hot liquid, scald. Also, if we scald briefly and drain, it is to blanch. But it is also the main word in two very popular Spanish expressions: El gato escaldado del agua fría huye Once bitten, twice shy, a burnt child dreads the fire Creo que David no volverá, gato escaldado del agua fría huye I don’t think David will return, once bitten, twice shy Salir escaldado Be taken to task, raked over the coals, burn one’s fingers, learn a lesson En la reunion Juan salió escaldado At the meeting John was raked over the coals — “Marsillach ha salido mayormente escaldado de sus experiencias cinematográficas.” El País, 29/07/1997. Esp.

I am no prude, on the contrary, I advocate freedom of speech and language. Speakers should express themselves as they please. However, expletives, oaths, fillers, and the likes of "fucking", for example, are not in my repertoire. I will never say "the fucking car" or "el puto coche". Do not ask me why. I don't know. I prefer to say "se ha roto el coche" rather than "se ha roto el puto (or jodido) coche." I will always prefer "Is that red light ever turning green?" to "Is that fucking light ever turning green?". But I know that it takes all kinds of speakers to make a language and so I abide by "fucking" and say nothing. This is my entry in my Dictionary  Fucking De (la) mierda, jodido, de los cojones, de las pelotas, puto That fucking car is no good Ese coche de la mierda no vale nada / This fucking rain got me all wet Esta jodida lluvia me ha empapado / The fucking translation is giving me a headache ...

Útimamente, y para mi desconsuelo, tengo problemas de movilidad y trato, aunque con dolor, de no cojear. Esto me da qué pensar, sobre mi carácter y sobre los cojos. Antaño los cojos llevaban patas de palo y eran conocidos como patapalos (peglegs), como el famoso Long John Silver, de la Isla del Tesoro. También pedían limosna por las esquinas, agarrados a sus muletas mugrientas, de madera. Se hacían chascarrillos como "un, dos, tres... cojo es." Tenemos varias expresiones alusivas a los cojos en la fraseología española, que he añadido al repertorio de mi Diccionario en ciernes, con sus correspondientes equivalencias en inglés:  A los cojos se le conoce por su manera de andar Actions speak louder than words, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck Sé qué tipo de persona es por lo que hace, que a los cojos se le conoce por su manera de andar I know what kind of a person he is by his actions, and actions speak louder than words — “Si a...

Poco explican los diccionarios españoles sobre pila, y menos sobre "ponerse uno las pilas" que significa afrontar las cosas en serio, sin vacilaciones, con eficacia. Ni el Seco, ni el DRAE, la mencionan. Sólo el María Moliner explica que ponerse las pilas es "disponerse a hacer algo con mucha energía y decisión" y yo añado lo de arriba: con seriedad y sin vacilaciones. "Ya has hecho el tonto bastante y es hora de que te pongas las pilas y busques un empleo." La lengua inglesa tiene muchas expresiones para expresar lo mismo: Fire up one’s computer  Put one’s act together  Get one’s ducks in a row  Shape up  To shape up or ship out  Put one’s skates on  Pull one’s socks up Y posiblemente haya más que yo ignoro. 

Posición del adverbio inglés en le frase:  Los adverbios siguen al verbo : He plays the piano beautifully. The teacher explains perfectly.   Never, always, often, seldom, sometimes se colocan antes del verbo : He always visits his mother in the morning. We never eat before 12. They often study at night. I seldom talk to strangers. I sometimes talk about the weather.   En los tiempos compuestos, se colocan entre el auxiliar y el verbo : I have never seen anything like it. She will seldom pay a compliment. When I was in London, I would often drink tea. Will she always love you?   Con el verbo to be , los adverbios se colocan después : She is always good. They are never on time. It is sometimes possible. I am also happy.

Oxford University Press, the publisher of the renowned dictionary OED, Oxford English Dictionary, recently announced its "word of the year" for 2024. The word is "brain rot," even though it consists of two words. This expression of the year is defined as:   (n.) Supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration."  This fixed expression or lexical unit is treated as one word. The problem arises with hyphenation: should it be "brain rot" or "brain-rot"?  Hyphenation is falling out of favor in  modern English, especially in informal or online discourse . Many compounds that once took a hyphen ( e-mail , on-line ) have lost it over time ( email , online ). Since brain rot emerged from internet slang, its unhyphenated form l...

  No matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides (it’s still boloney) Por muchas vueltas que le des, sigue siendo lo mismo — “Al Smith’s famous observation that no matter how thin you slice it, it’s still baloney.” Gwyn Morgan, 69 A.D. , 2007. US. || “I know those hills are full of baloney dollars. I know that no matter how thin you slice them, they are still baloney.” Saturday Evening Post, 1/11/1936. US. || “No matter how thin you slice it, there are two sides.” Sri Lanka Guardian, January 31, 2021. Sri Lanka.   Slice thin (split hairs) Hilar delgado (fino) That is a good distinction but you are slicing it much too thin Es una buena distinción pero hila usted demasiado fino — “If it’s working, let’s not split hairs.” The Magicians, (COCA), 2018. US.