LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  “La vida cotidiana es más llevadera cuando la realidad hace novillos.”   Fernando Arrabal, La dudosa luz del día , 1994. NB. Fernando Arrabal, 1932-, Spanish dramatist and novelist. 

  Money is the sinews of war o el dinero es el nervio de la guerra, es una frase, al parecer, de Cicerón, que escribió nervus belli pecuniae . Aparece en Richard Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy : "... and money, which is nervous belli, the sinews of war." La frase se ha atribuido a Napoleón, Richelieu, Maquiavelo, Rabelais. Se sigue empleando? Veamos: --"Money was, as a contemporary remarked, the sinews of war." Harold Heady, Rangeland Management , 1975.  --"At least treasury is still the sinews of war." New York Times, Letters, 02/14/1951.  --"... except to furnish the money - The sinews of war." William Saroyan, Human Comedy , 1943.  --"... para mí es como el nervio de la guerra." Revista Artes en Santo Domingo, 07/2003. S. Domingo. --"Como bien sabemos, el dinero es el nervio de la guerra." El País, 21/05/1997. Esp. --"... decía Lenín, pare el cual el dinero es el nervio de la guerra." Fernando Arrabal, La torr...

  I know the word sinew from the dictum "money is the sinews of war," ( el dinero es el nervio de la guerra ), meaning that the wherewithal is what supports war and is essential for conducting warfare. My Random House Dictionary defines it as 1. Tendon. 2. Often sinews, the source of strength, power, or vigour. 3. Strength, power, resilience. May I add grit, purpose, willpower, strength, and vigour?  -"This story was part of the sinew that bound us together." Mary Emerick, The Geography of Water, 2016.  -"With a supreme effort of sinew and will..." Analog Science Fiction, vol. 139, issue 9/10, 2019. -"What's most real about Black Panthers are its literary and historical sinews..." Hollywood Reporter, 2018. Why not use this word more often?

  “La cultura es la capacidad de vivir varias vidas en una.”   Rafael Argullol, El Cultural , 21-27 enero, 2021.

  Hay gente que hace las cosas a lo bestia, a lo bruto, y mata moscas a cañonazos, mientras que otros matan pulgas a balazos. Los anglohablantes, claro, no van a ser menos y "they kill a fly with an elephant gun" y a veces "they use a (sledge) hammer to crack a nut." ¿Moraleja? En todos los idiomas cuecen habas. (¿?).

  To express the idea that we are indifferent to something and are not interested, both Spanish and English have a string of possibilities and nuances, from the acceptable to the vulgar. "No me importa," and "I don't care"  may be followed by picturesque turns of phrase. Look:  (No) Importar un pito (comino, higo, cuerno, rábano, pito, pimiento, pepino, cuerno, tres cojones, ardite, carajo, bledo, una mierda, tres puñetas, tres pelotas) Not give a hoot (damn, rap, fuck, toss, two shakes, shit, darn, a flying fuck), not care a fig (a dam, straw, whit, thing), less Me importa un pito lo que hagas I don’t give a hoot what you do — “… mis acciones y mis secretos le importan un comino.” Fernando Aramburu, Los vencejos , 202. || “Entonces llegué a la conclusión de que yo le importo un pimiento.” Fernando Aramburu, Los vencejos , 2021. || “… mis peripecias vacacionales les importan un rábano.” Fernando Aramburu, Los vencejos , 2021. Esp.

  Darn it—RTVE has done it again! The network continues to introduce foreign phraseology into Spanish, in effect plagiarizing English idioms. In yesterday's episode of La promesa , a character told his interlocutor: “Hay más maneras que una de pelar a un gato,” a near-verbatim translation of the English phrase “There is more than one way to skin a cat.” This construction has no grounding in traditional Spanish phraseology. A perfectly idiomatic and attested Spanish equivalent is Cada uno tiene su manera de matar pulgas , which conveys the same idea in native terms. Why then are RTVE's scriptwriters resorting to calques from English and passing them off as Spanish? Is this a case of linguistic laziness or a deliberate effort to 'modernize' the language at the cost of authenticity? This trend merits scrutiny. Are we witnessing the erosion of genuine Spanish idiomatic richness in favor of fashionable, borrowed expressions?