LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

 I am a people watcher. When I walk down the street or sit on a park bench, I often gaze at passers-by, especially couples who, to my eye, seem oddly mismatched. Then I reflect on how English and Spanish express the idea behind matchmaking and the mysterious ways in which people find their mates for life. We often wonder how those two coming down the path ever got together, let alone married. Mystery of mysteries. A Spaniard might shrug and say, "Siempre hay un roto para un descosido," perhaps accompanied by a deep sigh. Or, "Dios los cría y ellos se juntan." In English, we may say that "there's a lid for every pot." Less commonly, "there's a shoe for every foot." My favorite, however, is "there's an ass for every saddle." In my A Phraseological Dictionary, English-Spanish , I document these expressions with bona fide citations, lest some smart-aleck imagine that I have invented them.

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."

  The expression tener ideas de bombero is defined in Seco’s dictionary, under bombero , as ideas “propias de persona torpe y sin ingenio.” María Moliner, under idea , gives “idea descabellada.” The DRAE likewise explains the idiom as “descabellado o absurdo.” Writers have used the phrase with this same sense. Eduardo Mendoza includes it in La verdad del caso Savolta (1973): “Nicolás tiene ideas de bombero.” Torcuato Luca de Tena writes “Tienes ideas de bombero” in Los renglones torcidos de Dios (1979). The meaning is reasonably clear on its own; it sharpens even further when we look for an idiomatic English equivalent. Options include harebrained , half-baked , madcap , screwball , or crackpot idea or opinion. One might also choose horseback idea/opinion , which Paul Green et al. define in Paul Green’s Wordbook (1998, US) as “a hurried judgement or opinion, guesswork.” Those of us who work between two languages can often refine translations or equivalents by searching ...

HARD-ON Un hard-on es, en un hombre, una erección . El lexicógrafo Tony Thorne señala: “To have a hard-on has been the most common way of expressing male sexual tumescence since the early 20th century.” Es, además, el título de una canción de Leonard Cohen: “Don’t Go Home with Your Hard-On” , donde advierte: “Ah but don’t go home with your hard-on / It will only drive you insane.” También aparece en la narrativa contemporánea. Por ejemplo, en Destiny de Sally Beauman (London: Bantam - Corgi, 1987):  “Plenty of excitement, plenty of anxiety, and no hard-on; just a limp cock hanging between his legs.” Conviene conocer estas expresiones, aunque no sea recomendable usarlas salvo en el contexto adecuado o en la intimidad. No obstante, ayudan mucho a comprender chistes verdes, diálogos informales y pasajes de literatura moderna donde el registro coloquial o sexual desempeña un papel relevante. 

  Wolf , aparte de lobo, se refiere a un calavera, ligón, Casanova, mujeriego, a un rijoso, verde, en suma: Your husband is a wolf , tu marido es un ligón. He sees himself as a Don Juan. Women see him as a wolf. A wolf whistle  era el silbido popular que emitían lo hombres en los Estados Unidos por la calle y que sirvía de piropo para las mujeres atractivas. Ahora es de mal gusto y de baja estofa. Y to cry wolf , es gritar que viene el lobo, una falsa alarma. A wolf in sheep´s clothing , es un lobo con piel de cordero. To throw someone to the wolves es arrojar a alguien a las fieras. To eat like a wolf , comer como un caballo. El plural de wolf es wolves .

  Men have a universal problem: they often forget to zip their fly , the strip of material covering an opening in the pants or trousers, usually closed by a zipper or buttons. Bragueta is the Spanish word. At times, part of the shirt shows through the opening, unbeknownst to the person talking, who is trying to sound important or pompous. How do we advise our interlocutor of his forgetfulness? For example: Your fly is open Your fly is down The shop is open, time to close up Your barn (front gate, door) is open Your fly is sending out an SOS And how would we advise our Spanish speaker that there's a problem with his "bragueta"? Tiene usted la botica abierta Jaula abierta, pájaro muerto I would lile to hear of more expressions in the two languages.  — “… I have faith in you. But your fly is open.” A Walk in the Clouds, (COCA), 1995. US.