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2017-12-20 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

Drinking a unique toast

Enlace para español/ Click here for Spanish

Dear reader,

In this season, many a glass is raised and “toasts” offered. The word seems to come from an old custom of using spiced toast to flavor wine; by extension it meant the person whose health was saluted.

Kroyer Peder Severin 'Hip Hip Hurrah!' 1888

Peder Severin Kroyer, Hip, Hip, Hoorah! (1888).

In Spanish it’s brindis, one of that language’s rare Germanic (as opposed to Latin) roots. From Ich bring dir “I bring you”—i.e., good wishes. (The verb brindar is “to offer, provide”.)

“To your health!” or variants thereof may well be the world’s most popular toast; Span. ¡Por su salud! or simply ¡Salud! and Fr. A votre santé! are close equivalents.

Toasts can be intricate, as in the legendary old Irish blessing: “May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm on your face, the rains fall soft on your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.”

But where drinking and poetry intersect, it’s hard to beat William Oldys’s 18th century “anacreontic” (poetic term for a drinking song), “The Fly”:

Busy, curious, thirsty fly!
Drink with me and drink as I:
Freely welcome to my cup,
Couldst thou sip and sip it up:
Make the most of life you may,
Life is short and wears away.

Both alike are mine and thine
Hastening quick to their decline:
Thine’s a summer, mine’s no more,
Though repeated to threescore.
Threescore summers, when they’re gone,
Will appear as short as one!

The empathy and fraternity with a tiny fellow mortal: how moving, how gently expressed! And likely inspired by a real fly on the edge of the poet’s glass.

¡Buenas palabras!
Pablo

 

Pablo J. Davis is an attorney, translator, and historian. A version of this essay was originally published in the Dec. 24-30, 2017 issue of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee, USA) as No. 262 of the weekly, bilingual column “Mysteries & Enigmas of Translation” [Misterios y Enigmas de la Traducción].

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", "The Fly", brindis, Davis, mortality, Oldys, Pablo, toast, traducción, traductor, translation, translator, William Oldys

2017-12-10 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

The violent alienation of “ajeno”

Enlace para español/Click here for Spanish

Dear reader,

Recently your faithful servant stumbled across a recording of a song he had heard from time to time, but has now had a chance to listen to closely. It is a jewel. Beautiful… but painful. Composed by César Calvo, sung in the bell-like tones of Susana Baca, leading exponent of Peru’s Afro musical traditions: “María Landó” is a hypnotic chant evoking the back-breaking, mind-numbing, and most of all soul-deadening work that is the title character’s lot in life. And still that of most of our kind, humankind.

After singing of dawn breaking with its wings of light over the city… and noon with its golden bell of water… and night with its long goblet lifted to the moon… the lyric turns to María “who has no time to lift her eyes, her eyes wracked by lack of sleep, by sorrows… María who has no dawn, no noon or night… For María there is only labor, only labor and more labor… y su trabajo es ajeno: her labor is not her own.”

What power, what violence, what understanding of the world is compressed into that single word ajeno “belonging to another or others, alien, foreign, unfamiliar.” Its root, Lat. alienus, also yields Engl. “alien.” (Think of how the latter word is applied to immigrants.)

Argentina’s incomparable troubador Atahualpa Yupanqui sang of the exhausted herdsman driving cattle in the hills: “Las penas y las vaquitas/ se van por la misma senda./ Las penas son de nosotros,/ las vaquitas son ajenas” (Sorrows and cattle/ moving along the same trail/ The sorrows are our own,/ the cattle belong to another).

The Roman playwright Terence gave us this moving expression of compassion, of solidarity with all our fellow mortals: Homo sum, nihil humani me alienum est—I am human, and nothing that is human is alien to me.

¡Buenas palabras!

Pablo

Pablo J. Davis, Ph.D., CT, J.D., is a historian, translator, and attorney. The essay above was originally published in La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee) in the Nov. 20-26, 2017 issue, as No. 257 of the weekly, bilingual column “Mysteries & Enigmas of Translation” [Misterios y Enigmas de la Traducción].

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", ajeno, alien, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Certified Translator, Cesar Calvo, Davis, labor, Lando, Maria, Maria Lando, Pablo, Terence, traducción, traductor, translation, translator, women, work

2016-11-06 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

Grammar and the “president elect”

Enlace para español/Link here for Spanish

Dear reader,

By the time these lines (written on Sunday) reach you, the election will be over—and all I can say is, I told you so. Which reminds me of the brilliant quip by St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Dizzy Dean who said, before the 1934 World Series against Detroit, “This Series is already won”—then added, “I just don´t know by which team.”

ballot-into-ballot-boxSo, as you read this, there will (presumably) be a president-elect. The term’s a bit odd: if a candidate is “elected,” why the form “elect”? (Spanish similarly has presidente electo where you might expect elegido.) The answer lies in the difference between “strong” and “weak” verbs in Germanic grammar, which is the main structure for how English works.

A weak verb forms the participle by adding an ending, typically “ed,” to the verb stem without changing the stem. Thus “bake” becomes “I had baked” and the participle can also act as an adjective: “baked chips.”

On the other hand, strong verbs like “seek,”  “sink,” and “bind” form irregular participles, short and punchy: “sought,” “sunk,” and “bound.” So, in English, the verb “elect,” while normally weak, in the phrase “president elect” behaves as a strong verb.

In Spanish, the equivalent principle derived from Latin grammar refers not to verbs, but rather to participles, as strong or weak.  Many verbs have both forms. Elegir (to elect or choose) yields me habían elegido (they had chosen me) in weak form, and presidente electo (president elect) in strong form, as an adjective. Habían freído las papas (they had fried the potatoes) but papas fritas (fried potatoes). Span. conquista and Engl. “conquest” both embody a strong form of verbs derived from Latin conquirere. Span. convencer gives convencido (convinced) but the strong form convicto (convicted); the English noun “convict” also derives from the strong form.

From “president elect” to “convict” in the same column—sadly, in 2016, regardless of who won, it doesn’t seem like such a big leap.

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", Davis, elect, elected, grammar, Pablo, Pablo Davis, participles, president, president elect, strong, translator, verbs, weak

2016-09-05 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

Word of a thousand disguises: the long, strange career of “freak”

Enlace para español/Link here for Spanish

Dear reader,

Words change across years and generations. They change spelling, sound, and especially meaning. But some follow such long and winding paths, so full of surprises, it can be incredible. One of these is the English word “freak.”

Circus poster photo, Ala., Walker Evans [1935] [AmMemory LOC id- fsa1998017988(slash)PP]

A key association of “freak” is with the circus, where it meant a person displayed due to some unusual (even hideous) characteristic such as extreme height, extra fingers, etc. This photo of a circus poster was taken in Alabama in 1935 by Walker Evans. (Source: Library of Congress, American Memory website)

Brave, fierce warrior.  From Old English, this sense dates to A.D. 900 or before.

Sudden fancy, whim.  This use was well established by the early 19th century. “A sudden freak seemed to have seized him” (Jane Austen). Spanish equivalents: capricho, locura. Not much used anymore. But freak out is—meaning a highly nervous or irrational reaction to a situation: “I need you to stay calm—don’t freak out on me.”

Enthusiast.  From the sense of “whim” arose that of “enthusiast.” It’s still common to hear, “She’s a health freak.” Spanish: Es una maniática de la salud.

Abnormal or extreme specimen. From “whim” came, too, the idea of the abnormal. A very tall person could be called “a freak” or “a freak of nature.” Around 1920 the term “circus freak” began to grow in use. It referred to an unfortunate person or animal fated to be exhibited in a circus, fair, or carnival. Spanish has fenómeno del circo. Typical attractions might be “The Bearded Lady” or “The Two-Headed Calf.”

Unusual, odd, rare. Similar to the previous sense, but distinct, is this broader one: as an adjective, “freak” can simply mean “unusual, odd, rare.” For instance, “a freak early-summer snowstorm” or “a freak occurrence.”

Drug user. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was commonplace to hear “freak” for an enthusiastic drug user, usually of marijuana or LSD.  It was also associated, in men, with beards and long hair. The combination “hippie freak” was common. An underground comic of the era was The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.

Nymphomaniac, hypersexual person. The drug-related sense began to give way to a new one. Rick James used it when he famously sang, “Super freak, the girl’s a super freak!” The meaning is that an individual is presumably insatiable in the sexual realm. Spanish has ninfómana and many slang terms, including loca (the feminine form of the adjective for “crazy”), much used in Argentina and Uruguay.

Copyright ©2016 by Pablo J. Davis.  All Rights Reserved. An earlier version of this essay originally appeared in the May 8-14, 2016 edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee) as number 179 in the weekly bilingual column, “Misterios y Engimas de la Traducción/Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation”.  Pablo Julián Davis, PhD, CT is an ATA (American Translators Association) Certified Translator, Engl>Span; a Tennessee State Courts Certified Interpreter, Engl<>Span; and an innovative trainer in the fields of translation, interpreting, and intercultural competency, with over 25 years experience. He holds the doctorate in Latin American History from The Johns Hopkins University, and is a Juris Doctor Candidate at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, University of Memphis (May 2017).

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", certified, Davis, derivation, etymology, freak, origin, Pablo, translation, translator, word

2016-07-23 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

What good translation is “for”!

Enlace para español/Link here for Spanish

Dear reader,

 “Latinos para Trump” read signs at the GOP Convention. Clearly it meant “Latinos for Trump” but it didn’t say that: Spanish para can mean “for” but it’s not the same “for” used to indicate support of a candidate. (An even more unfortunate version of the sign, also seen at the convention, was  “Hispanics para Trump” which didn’t even use the Spanish word for “Hispanics”: hispanos.)

Latinos-Hispanics para Trump

Scenes from the Republican Convention held in Cleveland, Jul. 18-21, 2016.

The preposition para mainly means “for the purpose of, in order to, to be used by.” Papel para fotocopiadora, “paper for  photocopier, photocopy paper”; vegetales para ensaladas, “vegetables for salads, salad greens.”

“Latinos para Trump” says something like “Latinos to be used by Trump.” It should read: Latinos por (or con) Trump.

(We’ll revisit por/para again in the near future.)

The mistranslation unintentionally said some other things, too: “This sign was not made by a Latino” or (more accurately) “was not created by a native Spanish speaker.” Even worse: “We don’t care about Latinos, we just want their votes.”

Poor translation is poison: it undermines your message; makes you look foolish; and sends adverse signals—the worst being, “We don’t care enough to do this right.”

Every time an organization assigns a translation to some employee who happens to (it is believed) “speak Spanish,” the result will almost certainly be unfortunate—and maybe deadly: imagine the mistranslation of a safety warning!

Few of us would let our brother-in-law “who fools around with electrical stuff” do the wiring of our house. Or have the neighbor who once took a CPR course operate on our liver. But, in essence, that’s what’s routinely done with translation (and its spoken cousin, interpreting). These are professional, technical skills requiring training and experience, not something you can do just because you (sort of) know a second language—and not even just from being bilingual.

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", Certified Translator, Davis, Donald J. Trump, error, Hispanics, Hispanics para Trump, latinos, Latinos para Trump, Memphis, mistranslation, Pablo, translation, translator, Trump, wrong

2016-07-10 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

The position must be filled

Enlace para español/Click here for Spanish

Dear reader,

We’re about to see two political conventions whose result may not be foreordained. Many find this strange, even unthinkable. But it’s how conventions used to be—before they became blockbuster TV specials with lots of flash but no real drama.

A bilingual look at some words of the season:

Roman white toga

“Candidate” comes from the Roman custom of those seeking public office wearing a white (candidum) toga, symbolizing purity. It’s unclear if this would make apt electoral attire today.

Convention, from Latin convenire “to come together.” Spanish convención has been widely used for such gatherings for some time; in the early/mid 20th century it surpassed an older term still not entirely obsolete: asamblea (assembly).

“Convention” can also mean a broadly accepted custom, as when broadcasters say a show starts at “9PM/8PM Central” it’s understood 9PM means Eastern time. Spanish “Convengamos en que…” (Let’s agree that) uses this sense of “convention.”

Span. convenio, from the same Latin root, means “agreement” as in an international treaty or a legal settlement.

Candidate and  candidato go back to a Roman custom: aspirants to public office wore white togas. Lat. candidum meant “white, pure.” Engl. “candid” took French’s sense “frank, sincere.” Span. cándido takes up a different sense: “naïve.” Neither “candid” nor cándido generally spring to mind when thinking of politicians.

Nominee. This sense is old in English, from at least the 1680s. The Spanish equivalent: candidato, simply, or titular (el titular del partido Republicano, the Republican Party nominee). A quaint term is “standard-bearer” (“standard” a term for “flag”); Span. has an equivalent, abanderado.

Running. Candidates “run” for office (or “stand” in the UK). In Spanish se postulan or se presentan, which are both also ways of saying “to apply”—as for a job. The electorate is a strange employer, though, as it is forced to hire someone even if not satisfied with the applicants.

¡Buenas palabras! Good words!

Pablo

Copyright ©2016 by Pablo J. Davis.  All Rights Reserved. An earlier version of this essay originally appeared in the Jul. 17-23, 2016 edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee) as number 189 in the weekly bilingual column, “Misterios y Engimas de la Traducción/Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation”.  Pablo Julián Davis, PhD, CT is an ATA (American Translators Association) Certified Translator, Engl>Span; a Tennessee State Courts Certified Interpreter, Engl<>Span; and an innovative trainer in the fields of translation, interpreting, and intercultural competency, with over 25 years experience. He holds the doctorate in Latin American History from The Johns Hopkins University, and is a Juris Doctor Candidate at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, University of Memphis (May 2017).

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", candidate, Certified Translator, convention, Davis, elections, Pablo, party, political, translation, translator

2016-07-05 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

Of masks, minds, sinners, and the word “person”

Enlace para español/Click here for Spanish

Dear reader,

What is it you and I, and everyone we know, are all examples of? So many words for it: “individuals,” “human beings,” just plain “humans,” “persons,” to name just a few. These are plurals; in the singular, each of us is an “individual,” a “human being,” or simply a “human,” or a “person.”  That last word may be the most common of all.persona máscara classic mask

“Person” has an interesting history: it comes from Latin persona, with a root sense of “to sound through”—the reference is to an actor’s mask, possibly with some means of voice amplification, as with a horn. Persona, then, came to mean “role” or “character,” gradually acquiring the further sense of “person, individual.” Engl. “persona” (with the “a” hanging on at the end just like in Latin) still means an assumed role or personality.

Persona’s descendants are found throughout the Romance languages (Sp.. It. persona, Fr. personne which can also mean “nobody,” Port. pessoa, etc.), but also Ger. Person, Swed. person, and many others.

The Slavic languages use a wholly different word: Rus. chelovek (pronounced “chel-a-VYEK”) appears to derive from words for “mind, thought” and “time, eternity”—thus the word for “person” would mean something like “eternal mind,” a lovely and spiritual sense Plato no doubt would have savored. (Engl. “man” seems, likewise, cognate with “mind” and originally meant any human being.)

Depending on the context, a whole series of terms can be more or less equivalent to “person”: “citizen,”  “subject”, “taxpayer,” “voter,” “resident,” and “consumer,” to name just a few. Of course their connotations differ pretty dramatically. There is an assertion of rights implicit in “citizen” that’s not quite there in “consumer,” though the latter has legal rights too.

Then there is “souls” with all its mystery and sometimes pathos—think of a phrase like “the 1,517 souls that perished on the R.M.S. Titanic.”

A curious and fascinating word for “person” is pikadur in Guinea-Bissau Crioulo, a tongue with a strong Portuguese core plus West African elements. Pikadur is from Port. pecador (sinner). Pecado (sin) is related to the second syllable in “impeach” which originally meant “to find fault, to find sin.”  In this word for “person,” the hand of the Christian missionary is not hard to see!

Theology meets language: in Crioulo you may mean “person” but you’re saying “sinner”!

¡Buenas palabras! Good words!

Pablo

Copyright ©2016 by Pablo J. Davis.  All Rights Reserved. An earlier version of this essay originally appeared in the Jul. 8-14, 2016 edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee) as number 188 in the weekly bilingual column, “Misterios y Engimas de la Traducción/Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation”.  Pablo Julián Davis, PhD, CT is an ATA (American Translators Association) Certified Translator, Engl>Span; a Tennessee State Courts Certified Interpreter, Engl<>Span; and an innovative trainer in the fields of translation, interpreting, and intercultural competency, with over 25 years experience. He holds the doctorate in Latin American History from The Johns Hopkins University, and is a Juris Doctor Candidate at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, University of Memphis (May 2017).

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", certified, Davis, etymology, individual, Pablo, person, persona, translation, translator

2016-04-01 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

The first of April, fools and innocence

Enlace para español/Click here for Spanish

Dear reader,

It’s not a holiday, school kids don’t get the day off, stores don’t hold sales—but April First is widely loved.

April Fool’s Day is a day for telling false tales with a straight face—and, if the victim falls for it, crowing “April Fool!” aFree iPad visual!t your gullible listener. (French “Poisson d’Avril!” and Italian “Pesce d’aprile!¨ both mean “April fish”).

April Fool jokes can be in print too; many newspapers traditionally added a false front page over the real one, with absurd, fake news. A few papers still do it.

This US election campaign will be tough on April Fool pranksters—who can top the absurdity of the actual, real news?

In the Spanish-speaking world, though US influence has spread “El Día de los Tontos” somewhat, the real equivalent is Dec. 28, Día de los Santos Inocentes.

This light-hearted festival has a dreadful origin: the Biblical massacre of infants ordered by King Herod, who hoped the Baby Jesus would be among those slain. Christianity’s Feast of the Holy Innocents commemorates these martyrs.

From those tragic innocents to the innocent victims of the creative lies of Dec. 28 is quite a jump. But that’s how popular culture adapted and transformed that ancient religious commemoration.

When someone falls for a Dec. 28 gag, the traditional gloat is “Que la inocencia te valga” (May your innocence do you good).

The tall tale can be called a “joke” (Span. chiste, broma), “practical joke” or “prank” (broma pesada). If it’s elaborately constructed, uses print or other media, and is meant to snare a large number of people, it’s a “hoax.” In Spanish, Dec. 28 jokes in particular are often called inocentadas, playing off the day’s name.

On a serious note, did you hear about the Trump-Sanders “national unity ticket”? And that Apple is giving away free iPads to commemorate Steve Jobs’s birthday? ¡Que la inocencia te valga!

Buenas palabras/Good words!

Pablo

An earlier version of this essay originally appeared in the Mar. 25-31, 2015 edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee) as number 174 in the weekly bilingual column, “Misterios y Engimas de la Traducción/Mysteries and Enigmas of Translation”.  Pablo Julián Davis, PhD, CT is an ATA (Aamerican Translators Association) Certified Translator, Engl>Span; a Tennessee State Courts Certified Interpreter, Engl<>Span; and an innovative trainer in the fields of translation, interpreting, and intercultural competency, with over 25 years experience. He holds the doctorate in Latin American History from The Johns Hopkins University, and is a Juris Doctor Candidate at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, University of Memphis (May 2017).

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", April, April Fools Day, cultura, culture, Davis, Día de los Tontos, English, español, Fools, inglés, inocentadas, Pablo, Santos Inocentes, Spanish, Tontos, traductor, translator

2015-02-21 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

Ladybug, ladybug, don’t fly away!

Enlace para español/Link for Spanish

Dear reader:

We’re used to thinking of cultural difference.  But some things in this world are so inherently beautiful that people everywhere, and always, seem to have loved them. To name a few: butterflies, roses, kites, rainbows.

Este diminuto insecto, ¿puede que sea amado por todas las culturas humanas?

Is it possible that this little insect is loved by all human cultures?

A small, flying insect, usually red and spotted—English “ladybug,” Spanish mariquita (little Mary), vaquita de San Antonio (St. Anthony’s little cow), and other names—also has a strong claim on membership in this select group.

The English and Spanish names are subtly linked: the “lady” in “ladybug” seems to refer to the Virgin Mary.

Some others: French la bête à bon Dieu (the good Lord’s bug), Russian bozha kapovka (God’s little cow), Dutch lieveheerbeestje (the dear Lord’s little animal), Yiddish moyshe rabbeynus ferdele (or) kiyele (Moses’s little horse, or little cow).

Why this affection so strong it often crosses into the sacred? The ladybug’s pretty colors are not unlike a butterfly’s; the spots remind us of cows.  Ladybugs readily rest or walk on a human hand.  And mariquita, a farmer’s friend, eats such agricultural pests as the aphid.

Some religious traditions, like Judaism, shrink from naming the Deity, so the prophet Moses is used instead. Spanish also steers clear of God in naming this insect, displacing to the Virgin or St. Anthony.

Maybe the ladybug is one of those utterly joyous things whose contemplation once moved Robert Louis Stevenson to write: The world is so full of a number of things/I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.

             ¡Buenas palabras/Good words!

Pablo

Pablo Julián Davis, PhD, CT is a Certified Translator (ATA/American Translators Association) eng>spa and a Certified Interpreter (Tennessee State Courts) eng<>spa, as well as a recognized trainer in the fields of translation, interpreting, and cultural competence. He has over 25 years experience in these fields. An earlier version of this column was written for the Jan. 24-30, 2015 edition of La Prensa Latina (Memphis, Tennessee) as part of his bilingual weekly column Mysteries & Enigmas of Translation/Misterios y Enigmas de la Traducción.  

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", cultura, culture, Davis, English, español, inglés, Interfluency, ladybug, mariquita, Memphis, Pablo, San Antonio, Spanish, traducción, traductor, translation, translator, vaquita, vaquita de San Antonio

2014-02-27 by Pablo J. Davis Leave a Comment

“Secret” languages or slangs

Estas dos personas ilustran el verbo "to razz" en ingles, una manera de abuchear o expresar desprecio. El origen de esa palabra está en la jerga rimada del Este de Londres, la llamada "rhyming slang".

These two individuals illustrate the verb “to razz,” which has its origins in Cockney rhyming slang and is indirectly connected with the word “fart.”

Enlace para español/Link here for Spanish

Dear reader,

The idea of a secret or encoded language is ancient, with obvious appeal to teenagers, colleagues in an occupation, prisoners—any group, really, that feels the need or desire to exclude outsiders from its communication.

In English, children have Pig Latin, where the first sound is moved to the end of the word, followed by ‘ay’: thus “ellohay” = hello. It’s similar to jeringoso, jerigonso o jerigonza (all derived from Span. jerga, Engl. “jargon”), which is a bit more complex: after each syllable comes ‘p’ and the vowel repeated, thus hopolapa = hola (hello), sipi = sí (yes), grapaciapas = gracias (thanks).

El vesre (the word revés, or reverse, itself reversed) long popular in Argentina and Uruguay inverts the order of syllables, though sometimes only approximately: yobaca = caballo (horse), jermu = mujer (woman), viorsi = servicio (bathroom), dolape = pelado (bald-headed man), lompa = pantalón (pants),  tidorpa = partido (game or match). When some action turns out to be useless, it’s common to hear vesre used in saying “fue al dope” (the phrase al pedo means useless, in vain; pedo itself means “fart” and thus the original sense of the phrase may well have been “as useless as a fart” or “like a fart in the wind”).

Victorian English back-slang was similar, though it inverted words letter-by-letter, rather than by syllable: “evig ti ot em” = give it to me. Apparently it was much used by shop clerks and street vendors to deceive customers.

Rhyming slang, a Cockney (East End of London) art, is great fun. Just a few examples: “slabs of meat” = feet, “trouble and strife” = wife. “Lee Marvin” = starvin’, “apples and pairs” = stairs, “bread and honey” = money. Often, further concealing the actual word intended, only the first part of the phrase is used, thus “I fell down the apples and broke me hand” = I fell down the stairs and broke my hand. So in rhyming slang, the rhyme is often implicit.

The verb to razz has its own amusing origin in rhyming slang. It means to jeer by using tongue and lips to imitate the sound of flatulence—and comes from “raspberry tart,” which is rhyming slang for “fart.” In the US, the same sound is also called a “Bronx cheer” (see illustration above).

Though none of these “languages” is hard to decode on paper, it’s not hard to imagine that when spoken at high speed they can be quite effective for secret communication. Quite apart from that use, these kinds of word play appeal to many users of language simply because they are fun and offer an arena for verbal creativity.

Good words! … ¡Buenas palabras!

Pablo

Copyright ©2014 by Pablo J. Davis. All rights reserved.

Pablo Julián Davis, PhD, CT,  is an ATA Certified Translator (Engl>Span) and a Supreme Court of Tennessee Certified Interpreter (Engl<>Span). An earlier version of this essay was originally published in the Mar. 2-8, 2014 edition of  La Prensa Latina, Memphis, Tennessee, as part of the weekly bilingual column “Mysteries & Enigmas of Translation/Misterios y Enigmas de la Traducción.”

Filed Under: Interflows Language+Culture Blog Tagged With: "Pablo J. Davis", Cockneys, cultura, culture, Davis, English, español, inglés, jerga, language, lenguaje, lunfardo, Pablo, rhyming, rimas, slang, Spanish, traducción, traductor, translation, translator

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    Latest Posts

    • Tonight, sometime around midnight, will mark the 300th anniversary of… well… how shall I put it?
    • Drinking a unique toast
    • The violent alienation of “ajeno”
    • No “mere drudge” or slinger of words: Our teacher and friend, Samuel Johnson

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    Interfluency Translation+ Culture offers top-quality, reliable, professional services in two broad areas: linguistic and cultural. We also consult to help organizations identify and implement meaningful, quality solutions to cultural and language-related challenges.

    Latest Posts

    3.4.18 Tonight, sometime around midnight, will mark the 300th anniversary of… well… how shall I put it?

    By PABLO J. DAVIS Sunday, March 4, 2018 Tonight marks an extraordinary anniversary… of an extremely ordinary event, one that occurs millions of times a day around the world. ...

    12.20.17 Drinking a unique toast

    Enlace para español/ Click here for Spanish Dear reader, In this season, many a glass is raised and “toasts” offered. The word seems to come from an old custom of using spiced ...

    12.10.17 The violent alienation of “ajeno”

    Enlace para español/Click here for Spanish Dear reader, Recently your faithful servant stumbled across a recording of a song he had heard from time to time, but has now had a chance ...

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