Spanish Word of the Day

Quote: Nareed

Dursleys [whatever they are, ed.] couldn't have known about this, or they'd take it from him in the blink of an eye. -really correct.

I shouldn't have said "correct", what I should have said is "original passage". Harry Potter books were written by a British woman. The idiom in American English is "in the blink of an eye", but the same idiom is "faster than blinking" in British English.

Fecha: 14-1-13
Palabra: Alcancía.

Today's SWD means a money box or collection box. In the other book I'm reading it mentions a box at a convent where people put clothes they wish to donate to the needy, which is translated as an alcancía.

Entonces, una de las monjas le llevó una nota que alguien le había dejado en la alcancía para los pobres. = Then one of the nuns brought her a note that someone had left in the poor box addressed to her.

Quote: Wizard

Fecha: 14-1-13 Palabra: Alcancía.

As always the prefix "al-" means "the" in Arabic. So this word is from the Moorish occupation of Spain. The word "kanz" means "treasure" in Arabic.

Fecha: 15-1-13
Palabra: Hortaliza

Today's SWD is usually simply translated as vegetable. However, the usual word for vegetable is verdura. This leads to the question of what is the difference. Based on a little digging, I think a verdura is specifically a green vegetable. Verdura, verde -- get it?

Hortaliza I think is a more general term for any kind of food that one might grown in a garden, and not necessarily a vegetable. Note the common root to horticulture.

The assignment for the advanced readers is to report on the meaning and etymology of the root hort.

La tierra de mi jardín de horaliza esta demasiado ácida. = The soil in my vegetable garden is too acidic.

Follow up

Hoy es martes, which means Lupe is here. I asked her about the difference between verdura y hortaliza and she said they both mean vegetable but a hortaliza would be the kind of vegetable grown in a small home garden and a verdura one grown on a large granja. Then I asked her if I had a home garden with radishes would which one would they be. She said a hortaliza. I said she was wrong, and backed it up with the dictionary Nareed gave me, that said a verdura is a green vegetable. Her response was that every grocery store in Mexico puts the radishes in the verdura section. I said every grocery story in Mexico has bad Spanish then. She basically said that I can go by the technical rules of Spanish if I want, but she just knows how people actually use the language.

Quote: Wizard

Her response was that every grocery store in Mexico puts the radishes in the verdura section. I said every grocery story in Mexico has bad Spanish then. She basically said that I can go by the technical rules of Spanish if I want, but she just knows how people actually use the language.

The Latin word for garden is "hortus" , so your argument is etymologically solid.

I suppose she has a point. If I look it up in the dictionary it says there are two cognates in the English language:
The adjective virid meaning "Having a bright green color" where "more virid" and "most virid" are valid phrases. You can also refer to "viridescence" and "viridescent".
The noun vert means "the right to fell trees or cut shrubs in a forest." For example quote from Walter Scott, Ivanhoe (1819): “I understand thee,” said the King, “and the Holy Clerk shall have a grant of vert and venison in my woods of Warncliffe.”

I have never seen the words "virid" or "vert", but technically they are part of the English language.

There was a Latin word vegetare which meant "to enliven". It went through a number of variations before English adopted it from Old French.

If you go to a "greengrocer" in America you are very likely to see some "non-green" vegetables, so even in America they don't take the name literally.

Quote: Wizard

She basically said that I can go by the technical rules of Spanish if I want, but she just knows how people actually use the language.

Well, what's the purpose in learning Spanish? A scholarly one or do you want to talk to people who speak the language?

Anwyay, the meaning of "alcancia" is "bank" as in a box or container with a slot where money is deposited.

Technically, vegetable is any organism that performs photosynthesis and naturally grows on the earth. So trees, grass, weeds, flowers, vines, etc; but not mushrooms, lichens, mold, blue-green algae, phytoplankton or photosynhtetic bacteria.

I've never really known what "hortaliza" is suppsoed to mean. Few people use it anyway. FWIW, when I hear it I picture carrot fields; perhaps because it was so used on the old, old, old Bugs Bunny comics.

Quote: Nareed

Well, what's the purpose in learning Spanish? A scholarly one or do you want to talk to people who speak the language?

Both. There is nothing wrong with an appreciation of the logic and history of language. It also serves as a memory device if you understand why a word is what it is. For example, if one had a hard time remembering that the usual word for vegetable was verdura, pointing out similarity to verde would help.

Thanks both of you, as always, for your help.

Quote: Wizard

It also serves as a memory device if you understand why a word is what it is. For example, if one had a hard time remembering that the usual word for vegetable was verdura, pointing out similarity to verde would help.

Really? I should think it would harm more than help.

I remember, if that's the term, words in English by repeated use and very frequent practice. You don't think I stopped reading and watching TV and movies in English once I deemed myself fluent enough, do you? It continues to this day. You may have noticed I stumbled more the first few days on my last trip as compared with alter on. That's because I don't get to practice speaking in English very often (writing and speaking are two different things).

Anyway, I know lots of Spanish speakers who have trouble with some English words, no matter how fluent they get. One such word is "after." Many persist in reacting to and/or using the word as if it meant "before." Why? because it sounds like "antes," or close to it, in their minds.

Quote: Nareed

One such word is "after." Many persist in reacting to and/or using the word as if it meant "before." Why? because it sounds like "antes," or close to it, in their minds.

I have the same trouble, but I keep thinking antes means after.

Quote: Wizard

I have the same trouble, but I keep thinking antes means after.

I don't get it.

I did have some trouble myself with words like "ingenious," but it's all a matter of figuring out what it actually means. Take another word, "terrific." It would seem to mean something like "frightening." It doesn't. So just disregard the sound and use the meaning. It's really very simple.