LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  QUOUSQUE TANDEM ABUTERE, PEDRO SÁNCHEZ, PATIENTIA NOSTRA?

  What Spain desperately needs is a level-headed Prime Minister who will perform the duties of his office. The current Spanish PM seems to have too much time on his hands, and yesterday he meddled with language once again. In his efforts to control everything, he now wishes to control language—a task well-nigh impossible. Pedro Sánchez has even gone so far as to respell the word odio (“hate”) as “hodio,” a convenient label for whatever criticism may be directed against him. Fancy that! Any criticism, correction, suggestion, or questioning of his policies may now be dismissed as HODIO . One cannot help recalling Nineteen Eighty-Four and its invention of Newspeak. O tempora, o mores!

  Sometimes a public figure - a politician, an actor, a writer- lets drop a phrase in an interview or formal chat, and it goes viral. Beleaguered Spanish PM, Pedro Sánchez, eager to justify his blunders, summed up his political philosophy  in the Spanish phrase: "hacer de la necesidad, virtud."  The English saying  Any port in a storm captures  the idea perfectly.  And, of course, make a virtue of necessity. " In adverse circumstances, one welcomes any source of relief or escape.  Sánchez would cut a deal with Old Nick himself to keep his government afloat. He could have also chosen other Spanish idioms with a similar meaning:  " La necesidad obliga" or  " en tiempos de guerra, cualquier hoyo es trinchera (y cualquier palo es fusil)." And now, in Spain, plenty of socialists are adopting this "philosophy of life" -  come hell or high water. In short, for Mr. Sánchez the end justifies the means. 

  Living in the United States, I was often mortified and abashed whenever the subject of Franco ’s dictatorship came up. I was not to blame, of course, and had done nothing to support the establishment of a military regime in my country of birth. Still, as a Spaniard, I was frequently asked about the general who died in 1975, after nearly four decades in power. His death marked the beginning of a remarkable political transition — from autocratic one-party rule to a democratic constitutional monarchy. The peaceful handover surprised the world, and for the first time, I felt proud rather than ashamed. But, lo and behold, years later — today, in fact — I find myself doubly ashamed, confounded, and taken aback by the antics of two men: Pedro Sánchez , Spain’s Prime Minister and would-be autocrat, and Donald Trump , a man whose childish arrogance and devil-may-care approach to leadership continue to disturb the democratic fabric of the United States. Live and learn. Is it true, then,...

  Some words, expressions, and idioms, seem to shadow us and be everywhere. Of late, "my word is my bond" dangles in front of me constantly. I hear it in films, TV programs, and conversations, and even I read it in print.  Of course, it's just sheer chance I encounter the expression so often. Random linguistic encounters happen all the time but it is a coincidence that the present Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has sent politics and ethics topsy-turvy, down the drain, by declaring that he does not lie or go back on his word... he simply changes his mind. "Mi palabra es sagrada" would be a good Spanish equivalent, although not for Mr. Sánchez, because "my word is my bond" is a meaningless phrase no longer in use and which, as far as he is concerned, has no credibility. He has upended the basic foundations of society. La palabra ya no es sagrada and my word is no longer my bond. Time to reread George Orwell and  1984. 

Tratando de justificar sus erráticas políticas, Pedro Sánchez , aprendiz de brujo, ha echado mano de la frase hacer de la necesidad virtud, y la ha hecho popular. Los anglohablantes dicen "any port in a storm", que viene a ser lo mismo. En caso de necesidad, storm, y nos guste o no, cualquier puerto es bueno para estar a salvo, sea el tipo que sea de puerto.  Any port in a storm La necesidad obliga, en tiempos de guerra, cualquier hoyo es trinchera (y cualquier palo es fusil), hacer de la necesidad, virtud I do not like this way of getting out of the situation but any port in a storm No me gusta esta manera de salir de la situación, pero en tiempos de guerra, cualquier hoyo es trinchera — “Said when one is in difficulty and some not particularly good way out offers itself; a last resource.” Ebenezer Brewer, Wordsworth Dictionary of Phrase and Fable , 2001. US.      

  Begoña Gómez , wife of the present Prime Minister of Spain , Pedro Sánchez , has been indicted by a Madrid judge and will have to appear before him next July. The outcome of this indictment is uncertain, of course, and probably will come to nothing. The situation seems novel indeed, although the Spanish language reflects, with words and phrases, that the underlying attitude of politicians, in terms of freely using power, is as "old as the hills".  "Nepotismo", favoritism shown to relatives, has been around since the Popes used it freely.  "Amiguismo" which is the "práctica de favorecer a los amigos en la concesión de cargos, privilegios..."  "Enchufismo", "la práctica de conseguir un empleo mediante recomendaciones o influencias." "Caciquismo" is a word Spàniards discovered in America, from "cacique", a political boss. "Trato de favor", cronyism or giving someone a leg up, to the detriment of ot...

  He will leave, of course, sooner or later, but how will he go? Let me use two idiomatic expressions, English and Spanish: He will step down, leave, go, not with a bang but a whimper , sin pena ni gloria . 

  The present Spanish Prime Minister, a certain Pedro Sánchez , recently, and at a political rally, used an old proverb to justify his irregular decisions: "hacer de necesidad, virtud." The English counterpart is: "Make a virtue of necessity", meaning "to acquiesce in doing something unpleasant with a show of grace because one must do it in any case." He was referring to his banding together with unscrupulous terrorists albeit he had sworn repeatedly he would never do it. I could offer him many other proverbs he and his followers could profit from: -- Once a thief, always a thief. -- A liar is sooner caught than a cripple. -- An ill life, an ill death. -- There are none so blind as those who will not see. -- You cannot have it both ways.

  I have come to the silly conclusion that Spaniards trip on the same stone countless times and enjoy pounding on the same theme repeatedly, flogging the dead horse of their lack of foreign language savvy. In my last post, I mentioned Mr. Núñez Feijoo ´s admission that his English is inadequate, which prompted his political adversary, the Socialist Party, to cook up a hasty video making fun of him on TV. O tempora, o mores , as the Navaho Indians used to say years ago. The President of Spain from the New Socialist Party, thinks himself a scholar in the language of Shakespeare. He is very daring because he has a lot to be modest about his English speaking abilities. But, unfortunately, he is a Spaniard, to our common regret, and so he believes that his passing acquaintance with English is a skill he should boast about. Not so. His fellow Communist-Socialists should not attack Mr. Núñez Feijoo for his lack of English and should instead send Mr. Pedro Sánchez to an English-language cr...

  Mr. Sánchez Castejón is, by a fluke, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Spain and certainly not my cup of tea. As I do not wade in the mud of politics, I will not mention his policies and how he steers the kingdom's rudder. He appears in the news often -self-satisfied and with grinning features- and recently he went to Davos. Spanish TV showed him speaking English... and my hair stood on end as I listened with bated breath. He is a worse polyglot than Rafael Nadal , which is saying a lot, I dare say! Of course, his followers are probably in awe at their president´s language skills, but I am chagrined deeply. Not that other European politicians fare any better, of course, and I can imagine all of them, gathered, captained by Sánchez, happily destroying the English language, its grammar, phonetics, and phraseology in a prepoterous language approprietion. They should all, with Sánchez at their head, officially apologize to the British peoples for manhandling and abusing their native...

  En la controversia iniciada en España por los separatistas catalanes que intentan hacer monolingüe a Cataluña, y relegar el español al rango de lengua extranjera con el beneplácito  de Bildu, Podemos y Pedro Sánchez, debo tomar posición. El equilibrio entre el catalán y el español en esa región no debe inclinarse hacia un lado o hacia el otro de la balanza. La suerte que tiene Cataluña de ser bilingüe, de hablar dos idiomas desde la cuna, es una bendición a la que no debemos renunciar. Estoy a favor del bilingüismo y en contra de la persecución lingüística, de una forma u otra. En cualquier genocidio totalitario de la lengua, debo levantar mi voz para condenar y defender el derecho al bilingüismo, un don que no tienen muchas culturas.