RTVE AND PHRASEOLOGICAL PLAGARISM

 

Darn it—RTVE has done it again! The network continues to introduce foreign phraseology into Spanish, in effect plagiarizing English idioms. In yesterday's episode of La promesa, a character told his interlocutor: “Hay más maneras que una de pelar a un gato,” a near-verbatim translation of the English phrase “There is more than one way to skin a cat.”

This construction has no grounding in traditional Spanish phraseology. A perfectly idiomatic and attested Spanish equivalent is Cada uno tiene su manera de matar pulgas, which conveys the same idea in native terms. Why then are RTVE's scriptwriters resorting to calques from English and passing them off as Spanish? Is this a case of linguistic laziness or a deliberate effort to 'modernize' the language at the cost of authenticity?

This trend merits scrutiny. Are we witnessing the erosion of genuine Spanish idiomatic richness in favor of fashionable, borrowed expressions?

---