PHRASE PLAGIARISM

 

I was kindly invited to a public lecture by the Spanish professor Dr. Pedro Álvarez de Miranda, member of the Real Academia Española, on "¿Quién manda en la lengua?" which, due to family matters, I was unable to attend. The title, however, gave me plenty of thought, especially because lately I have been noticing, in both English and Spanish, strange influences unknown hitherto. Spanish scriptwriters are introducing alien phraseology, as stowaways, into the ship of everyday language. "La promesa" is a successful serial on RTVE1 (Radio Televisión Española) which I watch when time permits. One character says to another: "No eres el lápiz más afilado del estuche" which reminds me of the English "the sharpest pencil in the box", or "the sharpest knife in the drawer", or "the sharpest tool in the box", or even "the brightest bulb in the tree", to mention a few. This "new arrival" is found nowhere in Spanish, except in a Diccionario abierto y colaborativo, with a definition filled with grammatical errors. This is not an anglicism; it is simply a literal translation of an English phrase, alien to Spanish, which has plenty of resources to express the idea: "no tener muchas luces, no ser el más listo de la clase, no tener muchas entendederas"... and more.