THE CURIOUS SURVIVAL OF PINTIPARADO

María Moliner tells us in her dictionary that pintiparar means “equiparar, comparar una cosa con otra.” Try using the verb before a Spanish speaker and observe the reaction. One suspects that many would be puzzled, for pintiparar has virtually disappeared from modern usage.

The curious thing is that the verb has all but vanished, while its participle continues to enjoy a modest but stubborn existence. Thus we still encounter pintiparado in expressions such as venir pintiparado, ser pintiparado or venir que ni pintiparado. Manuel Leguineche, in his novel La tierra de Oz (2000), writes: “Si no está roto, no lo arregles, era el refrán pintiparado para la ocasión.” Likewise, the Mexican writer Rosario Castellanos uses the expression in El eterno femenino (1975): “Y este papel de dios me viene pintiparado.”

Many words that are now unused or nearly forgotten survive in expressions, phrases, or idioms. English provides numerous examples of the same phenomenon. As for the meaning of pintiparado, English idioms conveying a similar idea include fit like a glove, just what the doctor ordered, do the trick, be a godsend, and, in some contexts, come in handy.

Just as reality is constantly in a state of flux, so is language. Words appear, evolve, decline, and sometimes disappear altogether. Yet fragments often survive in fixed expressions, preserving traces of earlier stages of a language. Those who wish to understand it fully cannot remain content with a limited vocabulary or a narrow stock of expressions.