LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

As a consulting bilingual phraseological detective, I am visited by many scholars who, bereft of the help of dictionaries, seek my help in duplicating idioms from and into English and Spanish. One of them, whose name I will withhold because he is in high cultural spheres in Spain, told me "necesito un empujoncito en mis investigaciones" and needed an English expression or idiom that would express that idea. We chatted for a while over a pipe of marihuana and a cup of coffee, and I mentioned another such Spanish phrase: "dar trato de favor" which, in essence, has the same meaning. He pondered for a while and asked me: "Cood it bee dat de Englis do not seek extra help from others" which I translated as "Could it be that the English do not seek extra help from others"? "Strange as it may seem, the English are as deceitful and canning as the Spanish." I jumped from my armchair, opened a common book I keep, and showed him this: "to give...

  Just as there are word detectives (Cf. John Simpson´s The Word Detective ), I have become a Bilingual Phrase Sleuth. I track, trace, and nail down equivalent phrases in English and Spanish. Traits to become a lexicographic bilingual phrase sleuth are stubbornness, hard work, constant alertness, reading, time, and carloads of patience. Pay no heed to those who praise the wonders of the internet and databanks sky high. We still have a long way to go in bilingual lexicography. While we wait for the Internet and Google to become linguistically serious, let me tell you an English idiom: Get up on one´s hind legs ,  become assertive, aggressive, belligerent, etc., according to Webster´s New World Dictionary, 2nd Ed.  "McBride then got up on his hind legs and told them he and his mates would kiss what girls they wanted to." (Louis A. Mayer, Under the Jolly Roger , 2007.) "David finally got up on his hind legs and told the boss what he thought of him." The phrase sleuth h...