LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

I  am very skeptical about phraseological etymologies, since most of them must be taken with a grain of salt. Llevar (traer) por la calle de la amargura , meaning to give someone a hard time or make someone’s life miserable, is a case in point. In his novel Los vencejos (2021), Fernando Aramburu uses it thus: “... dos hijas que le traían por la calle de la amargura.” The two daughters were making his life miserable. But what is the unofficial origin? Near the Plaza Mayor, in Madrid , there was allegedly a street, calle de la amargura , through which soldiers or criminals—depending on the source—were led to execution. The idiomatic expression appeared in the DRAE in 1970. Yet Gregorio González mentions the phrase, in reference to Christ, in El guitón Onofre (1604), which gives the folk etymology the lie and shows how slow the Academia has been to register phraseology. Be that as it may, my conclusion is that folk etymologies, however colorful, should generally be mistrusted.

asignatura pendiente. Tema, asunto aplazado y por resolver. — Es expresión escolar: la asignatura que no se aprobó en su momento y queda pendiente, por lo que debe repetirse. Es quizá la frase que mejor simboliza una cierta procrastinación muy nuestra. Mañana mejor que hoy; ahora no: luego. Este cliché contemporáneo es muy querido por los medios de difusión, tanto en la televisión como en la prensa. En la conversación espontánea quizá se use menos, acaso por los malos recuerdos que trae de los años escolares. Entra en la Academia en 1989: “dícese [...] de lo que no se ha realizado y debe realizarse.” Pero en la edición de 2001 cambia la definición: “Asunto o problema que aún no se ha solucionado.” Con este cliché la Real Academia Española ha sido más diligente. El Diccionario de uso de Vox, 2002, nos dice: “Cuestión, asunto o problema no abordado o no resuelto y cuya solución definitiva no se encuentra.” No me convence: es demasiado abstracta y pierde el sabor escolar de la expresión...

A muchos nos viene muy cuesta arriba decir no , una palabra tan simple, y otros no quieren ni oírla: they don’t take no for an answer , no aceptan un no por respuesta. Por eso tenemos otras maneras de negar: nope , por ejemplo: “Got any ideas? Nope!” (John Casey, Spartina , N.Y., Avon Books, 1989). Veamos otras maneras de decir nones , naranjas de la China , de eso nada , ni hablar : Nope : She asked him to do it but he said nope. Naw : Naw, I won’t do it! Nothing doing : Nothing doing, I won’t go. No way : Me join the club? No way. No dice (coloquial): Sorry, it can’t be done—no dice. No soap (coloquial, algo anticuado): I can’t give you the money—no soap. Not on your life : I’ll never marry you, not on your life. I no debemos olvidar a Bartleby y su "I would prefer not to."

 De origen incierto, en parte debido a su temprana proscripción en los registros escritos, lo que retrasó su aparición en los diccionarios hasta época relativamente reciente. A pesar de su uso común y cotidiano, la palabra fuck , también conocida como the F-word en círculos puritanos, ha sido relegada, prohibida y a menudo ninguneada. La falta de un verbo neutro en inglés que abarque todos sus matices ha favorecido la proliferación de numerosos eufemismos para evitarla, tales como to make love, to sleep with, to have sex, to have relations with, to have intercourse , etc. El lexicógrafo Tony Thorne, en The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang , señala: “The most commonly used four-letter word, used intransitively ( let’s fuck ) and transitively ( he fucked her/him ).” Veamos algunos ejemplos de uso: 1. Verbo (sentido literal): Jack and Mary are having a quick fuck in the kitchen. Mary’s boyfriend wants to fuck her all the time. 2. Interjección / exclamación (similar a damn o hell ): ...

 My Random House Dictionary defines pun as "the humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words." The tallest building in town is the Library because it has thousands of stories , is a good example of one.  Pun, as a word, is common currency in colloquial English, but its Spanish equivalent is not. The average native speaker will not recognize the word retruécano , as the equivalent of pun. It is easier to say juego de palabras, although punning is part of everyday language. Let me give you a few examples and see if you can crack them: - El médico le dijo al director del seminario que él también hacía curas.  -La nariz le dijo al pañuelo al encontrarse con él: me suenas. -A mi hijo la única fruta que le asusta es el coco. - Un gato le preguntó a una pistola cómo estaba su gatillo. -La leche le dijo al café que la...

  SOMETIME, SOME TIME Sometime significa alguna vez, algún momento, y es adverbio, Come visit me sometime , ven a verme alguna vez. También antiguo, my uncle was a sometime doctor at that hospital , mi tío fue antiguo médico de ese hospital. Some time , dos palabras, significa un tiempo no definido, algo de tiempo: You will need some time to go over these papers , necesitarás algo de tiempo para repasar estos papeles. Some time ago , hace algún tiempo. 

  It is commonly estimated that about 45 percent of English vocabulary is Latin in origin. This makes the Romance languages, in a manner of speaking, second cousins to English, and an advantage for understanding more formal or learned registers. There is, however, a caveat, and we must tread carefully before rushing into translation or interpretation. Consider two examples. The Latin appositus gives English apposite , meaning ‘fit’ or ‘suitable’, while in Spanish the same root yields apósito , ‘dressing’ or ‘bandage’. Likewise, Latin nescius (‘ignorant’) eventually became English nice , whereas in Spanish it retains its original sense in necio , ‘silly’ or ‘foolish’. These may seem quaint developments, but they are worth bearing in mind—especially for the more pedantic among bilingual students of communication. 

My research is limited and personal. No secretary to double-check, no team to gather information, no extensive research. But I have a bit of experience and a nose for language fluctuations. And of late, I have detected that too many different levels of Artificial Intelligence are spoiling the language broth and reshaping it. Too many "intelligence" have their fingers in the pie and they are messing it up.  We cannot conclude yet that translations are no longer a problem. Many rely on AI translations, believing they offer a true copy, an authentic language equivalent of the original.  As far as language is concerned, AI will not admit its inability to deliver either an answer or a translation. When unable to render an idiom from, say, English into Spanish, it will make up a translation, thus inventing new expressions or idioms.  AI will admit a mistake only when confronted, and still will offer far-fetched alternatives.  I posit that AI is thus reshaping language arti...

  Say with an edge / Decir algo con rintintín (retintín) The English expression to say something with an edge conveys a tone sharpened by irony, irritation, or subtle hostility. Its Spanish counterpart, decir algo con rintintín (or retintín ), captures much the same nuance: a remark tinged with intention, often suggestive, mocking, or faintly malicious. Examples: David answered the question with an edge. David ha contestado a la pregunta con retintín. “The woman asks with accented English, now with an edge to her voice.” Pam Jenoff, A Hidden Affair (2010) “Y añadió con retintín: ‘Eres apuesto, sí, pero bajito.’” Terenci Moix, El arpista ciego (2002) In both languages, the emphasis lies not on what is said, but on how it is said: tone becomes meaning. The Spanish retintín often leans toward irony or sly provocation, while the English edge may range from mild sharpness to open annoyance. In either case, the speaker’s intention cuts just beneath the surface of the words.

Irse algo a la porra (carajo, cuerno, demonio, diablo, mierda [en bote] , a pique, al garete) Expresión coloquial española que indica que algo se estropea, fracasa o se viene abajo de manera repentina o definitiva. Admite múltiples variantes intensificadoras: irse al carajo, al cuerno, al demonio, al diablo, a pique, al garete , entre otras. En inglés, los equivalentes más cercanos incluyen to go to hell, to go to the dogs, to go to pot, to go down the drain, to go on the blink , así como to go to rack and ruin . Ejemplo: El negocio se fue al carajo → The business went to hell Documentación: — “El perro se fue a la porra.” Néstor Caballero, Las bisagras (1982). — “… el asunto se fue al carajo.” La Vanguardia , 16/12/1995. — “Todo se fue al cuerno.” El Mundo , 25/05/1996. — “… porque si Britania se va al garete…” La Vanguardia , 30/12/1995. 

No creamos que el problema de las malas traducciones sea un mal hispánico. Ocurre en todas las lenguas. El problema no es la traducción en general, sino los traductores. Si uno se da un paseo por San Francisco, por ejemplo, encontrará traducciones al castellano en espacios públicos verdaderamente alucinantes. Ahora bien, no siempre se recurre a profesionales cualificados: con frecuencia se da por hecho que cualquier hablante de origen hispano en los Estados Unidos está capacitado para traducir, lo cual dista mucho de ser cierto. El código deontológico del traductor, en su apartado 1, dice: «El hecho de ejercer la profesión de traductor equivale, para quien la ejerce, a afirmar que cuenta con un firmísimo conocimiento de la lengua que traduce». Sin más comentarios, pero recalcando firmísimo . El monolingüe, ajeno por completo a los problemas lingüísticos, cree que cualquier inmigrante, o hijo de inmigrante, por el hecho de serlo, puede traducir del inglés cualquier cosa.

Camilo José Cela, 1916-2002, Nobel Prize winner in literature, was a staunch believer in "ideas claras", "ferrea moral", and steadfast discipline.  He did not beat around the bush and never, never minced words:  “A los escritores nos basta con media docena de ideas claras y una férrea moral que nos sirva para mantenernos al margen de las instituciones, que son todas malas, sin excepción, todas caducas y mañosas.” Camilo José Cela, Cuatro figuras del 98 y otros retratos y ensayos españoles , 1961.

  Me acabo de enterar, de refilón, de que me he perdido el XI Congreso Internacional sobre Educación Bilingüe, celebrado en la Universidad de Córdoba. Hoy, 23 de abril, termina. Y yo en babia, como siempre. Pero me percato de que han invitado a Steven Pinker como ponente de relumbrón y a través de él me entero de esta reunión. Interesado en estos asuntos del bilingüismo y habiendo publicado libros y artículos sobre el tema, me entristece no haber podido asistir, por cuenta propia, como oyente por lo menos. Nadie me ha comunicado o mencionado el evento. Sí han invitado al Dr. Pinker, como lingüista y experto, a pesar de que sólo habla y escribe inglés. Su posible bilingüismo, o trilingüismo, se quedó en agua de borrajas, aunque nació en Quebec.

Se quejaba mi hija Sandra de que no se ponía una falda porque se transparentaba. Traté de explicarle que antaño, y para evitar ese problema, las mujeres llevaban un "slip" o "combinación." Le hablé también de la expresión "your slip is showing" que mandaba a las mujeres a esconderse para que no se les viera la "combinación" o "the slip". La expresión me ha dado que pensar. El significado ha cambiado y "one's slip is showing" significa que "someone unintentionally reveals a hidden fault, embarrassing trait, or secret intention." Justo el modismo que necesitaba como paralelo al castellano "vérsele a uno el plumero". "David aparenta ser bueno, pero se le ve el plumero" o "David appears to be good, but his slip is showing." Por mucho que trate de disimular, se le ve el plumero o his slip is showing  y no nos engaña.    

  The distinguished Mexican writer and professor Gonzalo Celorio has been awarded the Premio Cervantes de las letras in Alcalá de Henares, birthplace of don Miguel de Cervantes. King Felipe VI will host the event in honor of an outstanding writer in the Spanish language. I suggest a dive into his life and writings that will be a pleasant discovery for many. Congratulations to all. 

  DELFIN CARBONELL:   DICCIONARIO PANHISPÁNICO DE REFRANES DE AUTORIDADES , Editorial Herder, 2002. En este libro encontrará usted con facilidad refranes que de verdad existen en el idioma, y su significado; cómo se han empleado –aportando citas-; cuándo se han empleado –aportando fechas-; quién los ha empleado –aportando nombres-; dónde se han utilizado –aportando títulos, revistas o programas de radio y televisión-; y en qué región geográfica -aportando nombres de países hispánicos-. Estos refranes los han empleado los clásicos, y escritores contemporáneos como, por ejemplo, Cela, Sábato, García Márquez, Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Borges, y muchos más que encontrará aquí en las citas textuales. Es una invitación a descubrir la aventura y el misterio del idioma a través de sus refranes. Abre la posibilidad de enriquecer la fraseología propia de cada uno y ahondar en el conocimiento del idioma, la mejor y más útil herramienta que ha inventado el hombre.

 Somewhere, long ago, I read that The Tragic Sense of Life (1921) by Miguel de Unamuno was the most important essay of the 20th century. El sentimiento trágico de la vida , 1913, is indeed a book to reckon with on our intellectual journey, and we should take a peek at it, if only because it was included -and therefore banned- in the list of best books: the Index Librorum Prohibitorum of the Catholic Church. Jorge Luis Borges said about it:  “Sospecho que la obra capital de cuantas escribió Unamuno es El sentimiento trágico de la vida . Su tema es la inmortalidad personal: mejor dicho, las vanas inmortalidades que ha imaginado el hombre, y los horrores y esperanzas que nos impone esa especulación.”  ( Textos cautivos , 1995.) Let me quote Unamuno:  “… único verdadero problema vital, del que más a las entrañas nos llega, del problema de nuestro destino individual y personal, de la inmortalidad del alma.” Miguel de Unamuno, Del sentimiento trágico de la vida en l...

  Un sufijo es un añadido a una palabra que cambia su significado. En este caso, el sufijo -o es de uso informal. Tenemos que wine es vino, pero un wino es un borrachín de vino, que se considera en inglés el peor tipo de alcohólico. Y si dumb es bobo, un dumbo es ya la caraba de la estupidez. Veamos más ejemplos de uso coloquial: dumbo – stupid person weirdo   strange person sicko – perverted or morally twisted person, sicópata cheap-o – stingy person, tacaño cheapo – bargain item or stingy person wino – slang for alcoholic (drinking wine mostly.) kiddo – child (afectuoso) preggo - pregnant female, embarazada psycho  – mentally unstable person, sicópata 

The Internet, AI, and related technologies have brought about advances that would once have seemed unimaginable. They can now generate lifelike figures—faces that blink, smile, and even flirt with the viewer—voices that appear, at first hearing, entirely real. One watches and listens with a mixture of admiration and unease: the simulation is astonishing, and yet something is off. The unease becomes clearer in the language itself. Whether in English or Spanish, what we hear is not incorrect, but curiously flattened. The intonation lacks the natural variability of real speech; the rhythm feels over-regularized; the voice seems to belong nowhere in particular. The Spanish, especially, often fails to correspond to any identifiable speech community. It is presented as “neutral,” yet comes across as disembodied—competent, but unreal. The visual element only heightens the effect. The language coach looks flawless, even coquettish, and behaves as if she were fully alive; yet her voice betray...

  Spanish has a wonderfully vivid way of calling out empty talk: cacarear y no poner huevo —literally, “to cluck and not lay an egg.” The image says it all: plenty of noise, no result. Closely related are mucho ruido y pocas nueces and írsele la fuerza a uno por la boca , both pointing to effort wasted in talk rather than action. English matches this idea with equally colorful expressions. A personal favorite is to be all hat and no cattle , evoking someone who looks the part but delivers nothing. Other equivalents include much ado about nothing , much cry and little wool , much smoke, little fire , and the blunt all mouth and no trousers . Example: David es un fanfarrón que cacarea y no pone huevo. David is a braggart— all hat and no cattle. As Fray Francisco Alvarado neatly put it in 1811: “Esto se llama en mi tierra cacarear y no poner huevo.” Different languages, same timeless observation: talk is cheap.

  I have always held that if the first 50 pages of a novel are tough going, toss it into the wastepaper basket or give it away to a friend you do not care much for. I have often heard it said that "the first 50 pages of this thriller are very complicated to read, but after that, the novel is wonderful, the best."  And who has the grit, endurance, and resilience to put up with fifty boring pages of a book, hoping that the best is yet to come. Once a bore, always a bore, I say. All this comes because my daughter, Laura Lynn, has gifted me with Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead. So far, I have read 20 pages of the autobiography of a boy in Appalachia, Demon, who is "a voice for the ages - akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield," according to Beth Macy, author of Dopesick . Having read both masterpieces years ago, I see no reason to tackle a new youngster's ravings and commonplaces about his childhood and hard times. Also, having read Tobacco Road  when it wa...

In my opinion, a word that sometimes describes Spaniards linguistically is hubris : excessive confidence in one’s own abilities. Why do I say this? Because it is not uncommon to hear claims of “perfect English” that do not quite withstand scrutiny. Many people will say, in all seriousness, that they speak flawless English—or that their children do—based on rather limited experience. One hears statements such as: “My daughter speaks perfect English; she spent a month in London washing dishes,” or that someone’s command of the language is impeccable because he works as a translator at a certain firm. Yet, when the chips are down, this supposed perfection often proves less solid than advertised. The gap between confidence and actual performance can be striking. This is not to say that Spaniards are uniquely guilty of such overconfidence, but there does seem to be a tendency, at times, to equate familiarity with mastery. In that sense, “hubris” may not be entirely misplaced. Spaniards spea...

  Homophones are the terror of poor spellers: words that have the same pronunciation but different meanings and spellings. ‘David is rite when he says Peter is rich’ sounds the same as ‘David is write when he says Peter is rich,’ but our sight tells us that the correct form is ‘David is right when he says…’. The sounds are identical, but the meanings and spellings are different. Here/hear; hair/hare; week/weak; pair/pare/pear… and many more. In Spanish, examples include hecho/echo; hola/ola; vello/bello; haber/a ver… and, for those who do not pronounce the Castilian /θ/ sound, caza/casa; cocer/coser. This is not a trivial matter of grammar or spelling; it signals to others that we belong to the intellectually below-the-salt type of people. 

  Rhyming phraseology occurs in both English and Spanish, as in “una y no más, Santo Tomás” or “date el piro, vampiro,” expressions that are distinctly colloquial and largely ornamental. English likewise abounds in rhyming pairs such as “itsy-bitsy,” “okey-dokey,” “hanky-panky,” and “super-duper,” among many others. As these forms are part of the language, their use cannot be prescribed; however, they are best confined to informal contexts rather than formal speech, and still less to formal writing.

  While reading the article “The people at the center of the war” by Parin Behrooz in The New York Times (April 10), I came across a sentence that contains two very small slips—of the sort that occasionally appear in even the best-edited publications. The sentence reads: “That war began with explicit encouragement for Iranians to rise up and ended with U.S. threats to bomb the country back to the ‘Stone Ages’ has not been lost on the people living through it.” Two details may be noted in passing. First, the familiar English expression is “the Stone Age,” not “the Stone Ages.” Second, the grammatical subject of the sentence is the compound statement introduced by that (“that war began … and ended …”), which would normally take a plural verb: have not been lost rather than has not been lost. These are, of course, minor points that do not affect the sense of the passage. They simply remind us how demanding careful copy-editing can be. Readers of a certain generation may recall a...

  Nature has laws we cannot escape. Life is a struggle for survival among living beings driven to thrive and reproduce. In that struggle, we fall prey to countless enemies, many microscopic. What we call disease consists of tiny organisms that do not intend to harm us, yet must use our bodies to thrive. If we overcome them, they lose; if they prevail, we die. That is neither good nor bad—simply a fact. I have fought my share of such battles and, so far, prevailed: ear infections, measles, chickenpox, kidney stones, two severe bouts of flu, endless colds, gastritis, headaches, a heart attack, cancer. The usual fare, if one lives long enough. Add to this the wear and tear of time on body and mind. I am 87 and still pushing on. Time allows no pause. Despite everything, I have lived a largely healthy, active, and mostly pain-free life. I was born before penicillin came into common use, which says something about the stamina of my body. I am, by any measure, a survivor—fortunate, and ...

  Of late, I have been noticing a tendency to employ "firstly", "secondly" instead of "first, second", as in "Firstly I wish to thank..." instead of "First I wish to thank..." It is not wrong, of course, and the adverb has been in use this way for centuries; even Fowler ,  however, tended to prefer first, second , etc., rather than firstly, secondly , and expressions such as “last but not least” would sound odd if turned into “lastly but not least.  I simply wanted to point this out in case someone like me was wondering. 

  I have always said it as "codo con codo", shoulder to shoulder, meaning side by side, but I read in a journal "codo a codo" and I rushed to my dictionaries to double-check. Was it a mistake? Nope, it wasn't. María Moliner uses the preposition "con", and Seco registers the idiom with "a".  Finally, the Diccionario de la Real Academia accepts both prepositions. Live and learn! So you can say: "Petra y yo trabajamos codo con codo", and "Petra y yo trabajamos codo a codo." 

Toda la obra Crítica efímera , es un dechado de buen escribir, acertada crítica, buen humor y correcciones lingüísticas. A propósito del lenguaje, me arriesgo a entresacar la siguiente cita, escrita en 1919, por si puede servir de algo a alguien o como recordatorio de épocas lejanas.   "... por defectuosa organización de la enseñanza oficial, y hasta por carencia de obras racionales que faciliten el conocimiento práctico del idioma, nuestros literatos, salvo honrosas excepciones, se arrojan a llenar cuartillas sin haber aprendido a manejar el instrumento de su arte, y, naturalmente, desafinan. De aquí que entre nosotros sea más necesaria, y también más eficaz, la policía del lenguaje." Julio Casares, Crítica efímera , "Una fábula de aduaneros y matuteros", Espasa-Calpe, 1962. (Publicado originalmente en 1919.)

 People no longer seem to care as much about how they dress, but there was a time when being elegant, dapper, smart, well-groomed, and stylish was the ideal everyone aspired to. Men and women dressed to kill, to the nines, and took pride in being well-dressed at all times. The Spanish language, too, bears witness to this former obsession with dress, with expressions such as ir hecho un pincel ( hecho un brazo de mar ) ir de tiros largos or maqueado.  If this increasingly casual approach to dress persists, such expressions may survive only in dictionaries. Juan vino a la fiesta hecho un pincel John came to the party dressed to the nines — “… se ponía hecho un pincel aunque solo fuera a ir al mercado.” Antonio Muñoz Molina, Sefarad , 2001. Esp. || “… lo mandé planchar, hice almidonar la camisa y…hecho un brazo de mar, bajé al comedor.” Manuel Leguineche, El camino más corto , 1995. Esp. 

These alternatives in English  Either...or: "Either pay or go to jail." Neither... nor: "I neither love you nor need you." have their parallel equals in Spanish: O... o: "O me pagas o te parto la cara." Ni... ni: "Ni quiero ir ni puedo ir."

I regularly receive the Modern Language Association newsletter The Source from the MLA Style Center, which I peruse diligently. In the issue of 29 January 2026, an article titled “A Common Mistake: Should of in Place of Should Have” caught my attention. It opens with the statement: “You may have seen people write should of , but that is grammatically incorrect.” I do not generally encounter such usage, nor do I associate with people who write in that manner. Indeed, contrary to the claim, I cannot recall ever hearing anyone say should of in place of should have . I may be living on the fringes of present-day English, but I find the assertion surprising nonetheless. The author, Laura Kiernan, suggests that “the mistake probably comes from the fact that should’ve sounds similar to should of when spoken.” Try as I might, however, I cannot hear should’ve as resembling should of . While the explanation is plausible, pointing out this “mistake” strikes me as somewhat unnecessary for ...

     There was a time when manners , politeness , and etiquette were not just words, but living principles. Today, they risk becoming old-fashioned vocabulary, their meanings fading in the minds of the young. In their place, other expressions are gaining currency—often reflecting a rather different social reality.      One such expression is “to take French leave.” Traditionally, it meant departing without saying goodbye, without asking permission, without so much as a word of notice—a small but unmistakable social offense. In earlier times, such behavior would have been considered a breach of decorum, if not outright rudeness. Now, it passes almost unnoticed.    The phrase itself is a curious example of linguistic blame-shifting across cultures. The French, returning the compliment, say “filer à l’anglaise,” placing the blame squarely on the English. Spanish follows suit with “despedirse a la francesa,” suggesting, perhaps with a faint smil...

  There are words proscribed by society as improper and unacceptable, taboo, and which, nevertheless, we have to name and refer to. Such is the case of the word syphilis, a venereal disease that, it seems, is making a comeback. In former times, it was referred to in polite society as The French Disease , morbo gallico .  As the French had also stigmatized the word, they blamed Italians and called it le mal de Naples . Italians retaliated with il mal francese . Spaniards blamed the French also: el mal francés . It was a curse that ravaged Europe for centuries. In his book The World of Yesterday , Stephen Zweig explains its impact upon the youth of his time. 

 Ya he tratado en este Blog sobre la pronunciación de nombres y apellidos en inglés y he hecho hincapié en su dificultad. No debemos bajar la guardia nunca y cerciorarnos siempre. Leyendo el New York Times (28 de marzo, 2026), veo que llevamos casi dos siglos pronunciando mal el apellido del escritor y filósofo estadounidense Henry David Thoreau. En su artículo "Rethinking Thoreau...", Sarah Lyall nos cuenta que la pronunciación no es /Zoró/, sino /Zóro/,  /THO-reau, y que el acento recae en la primera sílaba. Todo esto a propósito de un programa en ciernes de la PBS sobre el escritor, narrado por actores como George Clooney y Meryl Streep, donde, al parecer, han tenido que enseñarles la nueva -y correcta- pronunciación del apellido francés. Si los mismos nativos tienen problemas fonéticos con nombres y apellidos, recomiendo ejercer cautela siempre. 

  Quiero recordarles a ustedes, estudiosos del idioma, dos citas de Julio Casares (1877-1964), extraídas de su Cosas del lenguaje (Espasa-Calpe, 1961), que, en mi modestísima opinión, hay que tener en cuenta al tratar esta cuestión: "... de un orden infinitamente más complejo y sutil es la lógica del lenguaje; ya que éste, como todo hecho social, como todo producto de cultura, es una obra colectiva, inestable, en cuya evolución intervienen, influyéndose recíprocamente, factores materiales, fisiológicos y psíquicos de muy diversa índole, no siempre fáciles de aislar."   "No intentemos... reformar arbitrariamente el idioma. Tal como está -sin que esto sea desconocer su calidad de perfectible- resulta un instrumento muy superior a la capacidad de casi todos los que lo empleamos; por lo cual, no estaría de más que dedicásemos a estudiar nuestra lengua la mitad del empeño que ponemos en criticarla." 

Can José López Pinillos (Pármeno), 1875–1922, be considered a forgotten writer in Spain? I believe so. Yet he is far from alone. Countless writers have fallen by the wayside of notoriety and now rest on the soft, dusty shoulders of oblivion. A glance at his Cómo se conquista la notoriedad: Los favoritos de la multitud (Editorial Pueyo, calle Arenal, 6) confirms his mastery as a journalist. In this volume, López Pinillos interviews leading figures of his time: Alejandro Lerroux , General Valeriano Weyler ,  Álvaro de Figueroa y Torres , José Francos Rodríguez , Ramón del Valle-Inclán , Carlos Arniches , and others now less remembered. Together, they illuminate the intellectual world of Spain a hundred years ago. It is well worth opening these pages to discover how they saw their world—and, perhaps, how much of it still lingers in ours.

     Did you know that in some places Spaniards are occasionally teased for pronouncing /θ/ instead of /s/? It is curious, because that very distinction can actually enhance clarity.      Consider this: if I say me voy a cazar , pronouncing ka θ ar rather than casar , there is no doubt about my intention. If, on the contrary, I say me voy a casar , I may well be congratulated and asked about the bride.      In varieties of Spanish where both words are pronounced the same, context usually resolves the ambiguity—but the phonetic distinction available in standard Peninsular Spanish removes it altogether.      Language, after all, is a tool for communication, and every feature that contributes to clarity deserves some appreciation. This is not “lisping” (a different phenomenon altogether), but simply one way—among others—of giving the language its full expressive range.

  Yesterday, Telemadrid did it again. Truth be told, this should not surprise me, because Spanish television in general shows a low regard for the official language of Spain. In the program “120 minutos” we read: “Anboto, exdirigente de ETA condenada por participar en quince asesinatos, sale de prisión entre la indignación de las víctimas.” “Entre” for “ante.” And “las víctimas” should more properly be “los allegados de las víctimas.” Let them kick grammar and usage around as much as they like—Spain is, after all, still a democracy—but we should try our darndest to speak and write well. Right?

  Every language has its own native mistakes—errors foreigners rarely make—which reveal a speaker’s social and cultural standing. These mistakes serve as useful clues, helping us judge whether someone belongs to our circle or not. In this sense, we should be grateful for them. Editors, constantly exposed to poor writing, are in a privileged position. Awkward sentences, faulty grammar, and ill-formed expressions not only betray weak education but also make it easy to dismiss a piece. One might even argue that institutions failing to teach proper language deserve to be held accountable. Common errors abound—misused pronouns, redundant expressions, incorrect agreements, and illogical constructions. Such mistakes should never appear in serious writing. And yet, these very errors are oddly comforting. They allow us to feel competent, even superior. Spotting “everybody in the room were drunk” can bring a quiet satisfaction: we know better. In a way, other people’s mistakes boost our ...

     Polonius, in Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 3), advises us: “neither a borrower nor a lender be.” Getting into debt is one of the worst mistakes we can make, and I have tried to avoid it all my life. I am poor, but I owe nothing. What a relief. And as for lending, my poverty has kept borrowers at a safe distance!      Keep away from mortgages, credit cards, and installment buying, and you will sleep soundly.      In Spanish, prestar means ‘to lend’, whereas ‘to borrow’ is tomar prestado or pedir prestado .      I have listed the following in my Phraseological Dictionary : He who lends loses his friend  (he that doeth lend loseth money and friend)   Quien presta no cobra, y si cobra, no todo, y si todo, no tal, y si tal, enemigo mortal “…he who lendeth money unto his friend, looseth both money and friend.” Richard Younge, The Prevention of Poverty , 1655, UK.  Quien presta no cobra, y si cobra, no todo, y si todo,...

  José Ortega y Gasset has a delightful article entitled “Pío Baroja tropieza en Coria con la gramática” ( El espectador , VII), apropos of prepositions. I warmly recommend the piece to all lovers of language. Unfortunately, it is not only Pío Baroja who stumbles in matters grammatical. One observes, with some concern, that many Spanish speakers show a certain uncertainty in the handling of their own language, particularly in the use of prepositions. Take a simple but telling example: a la mesa and en la mesa . To say estar sentados a la mesa is to be “at the table,” participating in the shared act of eating; sentados en la mesa , by contrast, places one physically “on the table.” The distinction is neither trivial nor pedantic—it is semantic. In recent times, the more permissive stance of the Real Academia Española has tended to accept such looseness as part of evolving usage. Yet not all change is gain. When distinctions that carry meaning are blurred or lost, the language its...