Spanish Word of the Day

Quote: Wizard

Today's SWD means to sob.

A cognate to Spanish "sollozar" is English "singultus" which is the medical name for hic-cups.



The Old English word for hiccups was ælfsogoða because the cause was thought to be elves.

Quote: Wizard

No sollozas sobre de la leche derramada. = Don't sob over spilled milk.

That's so bad, yet so hard to retranslate literally. Let's see.... "Don't you thou sob on top the of the spilled milk" more or less.

"No sollozEs por la leche derramada."

BTW, saying that to a Spanish speaker, even in an appropriate context, would be met with a puzzled frown, and the sneaking suspicion you've gone crazy. Offhand I can't think of an equivalent bromide.

Quote: Nareed

Offhand I can't think of an equivalent bromide.

It has been suggested the equivalent idiom is "A lo hecho pecho". But I admit that I am a little confused on the meaning of the phrase. It looks like "What's done is done", but pecho also means breast.

In this episode of the Simpson, the phrase Takes one to know one. is translated as A lo hecho pecho. However it is not clear if the translator simply inserted one trite phrase in English for another one in Spanish.

---------------
Marge: Oh Maggie, when are you going to talk?

Lisa: Well, don't push her. Remember, it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Homer's brain: What does that mean? Better say something or they'll think you're stupid.

Homer: Takes one to know one.

Homer's brain: Swish!

Speaking of crying, one story I have come across twice already is La Llorona. It was told a different way both times. So I've asked various Spanish-speaking people here, and got yet another version every time. The one thing every version has in common is a woman whose kids died and she goes around places where children like to play by themselves looking for them. There is always an implied danger she will get confused and steal the wrong kid, thus the need to stay in large groups and not stray far from home, especially at night.

What differers is:

1. Who killed the kids. In some version she drowned them and others somebody else did it, but she may have been complicit somehow.
2. Whether La Llorina is a normal living person, an immortal person (like a vampire), or a ghost.
3. How the kids died. Usually they drowned, but sometimes it isn't stated.
4. Whether La Llorona tends to hang out around water or not. Usually she tends to look for her kids by the site of the drowning.
5. Where said events took place. So far I've heard, Texas, various parts of Mexico, and Peru.
6. Whether or not an owl is involved. The role of the owl can vary greatly.

I'd be interested in the version others may have heard.

Quote: Pacomartin

It has been suggested the equivalent idiom is "A lo hecho pecho". But I admit that I am a little confused on the meaning of the phrase. It looks like "What's done is done", but pecho also means breast.

I quite literally have never come across it before. It sounds more likea childish attempt at a nonsense rhyme than even a bromide should.

Quote:

In this episode of the Simpson,

Oh, well, that explains a lot. You see, whoever thought it was ok to dub TV shows ought to be slowly killed, quartered, drawn, butchered, boiled in oil and reduced to fine ash over a plasma flame. ("Of course that's just for starters" The Robot Devil).

Seriously. If you want to come across really bad Spanish, not to mention butchered art, you can do no worse than dubbed TV..

And that's before taking into account that, since dubbing costs money, such programs are a mishmash of different regional idioms and stereotypes.

Quote: Wizard

I'd be interested in the version others may have heard.

Joe Hayes tells an excellent version of the story in English. We talked about his book about "The Day it Snowed Tortillas" earlier.

NBC's Grimm had an episode entitled La Llorona on 26 October 2012 (available online Feb 16).

Grimm is a fantasy series about a detective descended from the family that includes "The Brothers Grimm". He inherits the ability to see fairy tale creatures masquerading as people. His new friend is a Blutblood who generated the story of "The Big Bad Wolf" .

In the TV show while once human La LLorona is now a spirit. In the TV show, she lures the parents away, and then kidnaps the children and puts them under a spell. When she has three she drowns them together, and has been repeating this murder once a year for 500 years. She does this in a vain attempt to get her own children back


Kate Castillo (age 40) plays the obsessed woman who has been trying to hunt down this spirit for years.

Quote: Wizard

The book I'm reading now is a translation of Esperanza Rising. The book is about a girl from Mexico, so I would imagine it was translated in Latin American Spanish. As near as I can tell, it is a good translation, done with words people actually say. Here is the whole sentence in question.

English: Was she dreaming? Was this her own imagination gone wild?
Español: ¿No sería que su imaginación se había desbocado?

I heard back from Pam Ryan, the author of "Esperanza Rising". She wrote to Teresa Mlawer, the former president of Lectorum Publishing. She believes that the translator was originally from Spain.

But Teresa felt that descobado was an accurate word for this translation, and she would have used the word herself if she was doing the translation.

Teresa cited definition #5 in the RAE for descobar

Desmandarse, descomedirse, perder el control.
Durante las agitaciones, el pueblo se desbocó.

Teresa added : Por extensión, se desboca el corazón, o la imaginación...

desmandarse = to go on a rampage,
descomedirse = to rant or insult,
perder el control = to lose control
The example is "During the tumultuous times, the people went wild."

By extension, the heart runs wild, or the imagination runs wild.

RE: La Llorona

I enjoyed Hayes' telling of the story. It would have been perfect around a campfire. The last time I tried to scare some kids around a campfire I said "It is frighening how much topsoil is lost every year due to the destruction of the rainforests." However, nobody got scared.

His version was similar to somebody who works with my hair syslist. He was the one thought La Llorona was from south Texas. However, his version was more like the actual Susan Smith story, where she killed her kids because she was in love with another man who didn't want to be a stepfather. However, when he found out she killed her kids he left her, which caused her to go crazy. There was also an owl in his version, but it didn't make sense to me how the owl was involved.

RE: Desbocar

Again, you certainly get an A+, with lots of extra credit, for your hard work on that one. You would have made a good detective.

Quote: Wizard

RE: Desbocar
Again, you certainly get an A+, with lots of extra credit, for your hard work on that one. You would have made a good detective.

Thank you, but I still wonder which sentence is easier to understand for a pre-teen.

1) su imaginación ido salvaje
2) su imaginación se había desbocado

Fecha: 2-12-12
Palabra: Higo

Today's SWD means fig.

If the Academia Real Española is following this thread, I submit for their consideration that they change the name to higa. "Why?", you might ask. With other fruits the name of the fruit is feminine, but to get the name of the tree that bears the fruit, just change the a to an o. For example, an apple is manzana and an apple tree is a manzano. So, it would be simple and consitent to have higa y higo for fig and free tree respectively. Meanwhile, the word for fig tree is higuera.

The question for the advanced readers is whether other fruits follow a similar fruit/tree convention as figs.

Ejemplo time.

Recoge algunos higos para que pudiere hacer un pastel. = Gather some figs so that I can make a pie.

Note that I'm not sure about using the future subjunctive of poder. The conditional tense would be my second choice. Ordinary future would be my third.

In other news my son's tennis teacher Jorge has yet another version of La Llorona. He says she shows up often whenever anybody's kids die, just because she mourns the death of all kids.