A PIN DROP AND EL VUELO DE UNA MOSCA

I lost the hearing in my left ear when I was about six years old, owing to otitis media. This has certain advantages: at night I rest my right ear on the pillow and shut out the world. Everything becomes quiet and still, and I cannot oír el vuelo de una mosca—literally, “hear the flight of a fly.”

As usual, English has a counterpart: one can hear a pin drop. Both expressions describe an extraordinary degree of silence. Try it sometime: go into a soundproof room, drop a pin, and listen. Or, better still, let a fly loose in the same room and see whether you can hear the flapping of its wings.

How fascinating sound is—and how differently languages find ways of expressing its absence.