Pondering the world

automobilish languages

telling time in Spanish requires math skills

Four weeks into Spanish I, we encountered the lesson on telling time. Medianoche is midnight. Mediadia is noon. Not too bad. Literally, they say "middle of the night" and "middle of the day."

It gets harder. To say "It's one o'clock" is "es la una," literally "it is the one." The word for hour is hora, which is feminine but the word is implied rather than stated when telling time. Really, it says "it is the (hour) one." Trying to figure out noun gender and plurality is enough to make any native English speaker look like a stunned moose.

It gets harder. To say any time after one o'clock, it becomes plural, Son las dos, because now it's saying "they are the two hours." (horas is now both feminine and plural.) Add some minutes on there:  Son las tres y veinticinco. It's 3:25.

It gets harder.  3:30 is son las tres y media.  "They are three and a half."

It gets harder, and now you need math skills.  Once you go beyond 30 minutes past the hour, you skip to the next hour and subtract the number of minutes remaining until that time. Those of us who grew up with watches and clocks with faces can do that fairly well, as long as we can look at it. Those who grew up mostly looking at digital clocks may have a tougher time of it. Son las cuatro menos veintiocho. "They are four (hours) minus twenty-eight (minutes).

It's 5:38. Quickly! How many minutes before 6:00 is it? Now say it in Spanish.

Someone renegged... renigged... backed out of an agreement.

I've been using this word for years, which most people pronounce "renig." You know, it's when someone makes an agreement and then backs out of it at the time they need to fulfill their part of the bargain. I have hardly ever written it, and the few times I've tried in the past few years, the spell checker tells me it's wrong and I don't get a suggested word.

I thought maybe it derived from the word "renegotiate," but that would only work if both parties wanted to change the terms of the original agreement. If one person backs out when it's time to pay up, that's not renegotiating--it's welching on the deal. (To "welch" means to cheat by avoiding paying a gambling debt, and that can also be spelled "welsh.")

It actually comes from the Latin renegare, "to deny." The correct spelling is "renege" and the past tense is "reneged," which is the form nearly always used, since we don't find out someone's going to renege until they've actually done it.

I'm not sure it matters.  Even when I spell it correctly, it looks wrong.

 

 

Spanish delayed

Yesterday I received a call from UNM Continuing Education that I was expecting. It's bitterly cold, and all public schools, private schools, UNM and lots of other places are closed. I knew that my Spanish class scheduled to begin today was at a middle school, and if the school was closed, my class for that night would be cancelled. 

Actually, the call was to inform me that the entire class was cancelled because they hadn't had enough people register for it. All of the other Spanish I classes began in January and are now closed. I wouldn't want to join a class this long after they've started anyway.

Last week, Groupon offered five Spanish classes at Spanish ABQ for half price. I didn't jump on that because I thought "I'm starting Spanish next week, so I don't need it."  Little did I know.

It seems I'm destined never to take Spanish. After all these years when I finally got motivated enough to register at UNM and enroll in a class, it's cancelled. So, back to the internet search to find out where else I can take Spanish.

"going to hell in a hand-basket"--where did that phrase originate?

The repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" is on its way, and those opposed to the repeal are predicting that the military is "going to hell in a hand-basket."  Of course, that caused me to wonder where that phrase originated.

Since the term forecasts imminent disaster, the first supposition is that it refers to catching the decapitated head of an unfortunate soul who has crossed someone in power.  Disaster, indeed.

While it does imply use of the guillotine, the expression "going to hell in a hand-basket" is neither French nor English, but uniquely American.  In fact, the explanation of it on The Phrase Finder says it's rarely used outside of the United States.  Who knew?

As for the impending disaster, it was also predicted that the Navy would "go to hell in a hand-basket" when they started allowing women to serve aboard ships.  I don't think that actually happened.

Of course, nowadays it feels like we're all "going to hell in a hand-basket," but for different reasons entirely--it's the economy, stupid.

Welcome to Chinese Restaurant

The chopsticks were beautifully encased in a bright red wrapper with Chinese symbols, and on one side were thoughtfully provided the instructions for using chopsticks for those who need them.

I can imagine the conversation in the marketing department of the chopstick company.

"We have room for a message on the other side.  We should thank people for eating at a Chinese restaurant and tell them about our great country.  But these are going to the U.S., so it needs to be in English.  Does anyone here know English?"

"Chen does!  Let's get Chen to write it in English!"

The result:

Welcome to Chinese Restaurant.  please try your Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks the traditional and typical of Chinese glonous history and cultual.  BAMBOO CHOPSTLCKS

We get the idea.  And Chen's English is still way better than my Spanish.

I really just meant to loan her the book

At the library's used book store in the basement, I found a cute children's book in Spanish entitled Cuento de Otoño.  It was beautifully illustrated, obviously a story about a little mouse and his wife gathering blackberries.  I looked up the word cuento, which means "story."  I thought Otoño was the name of the mouse.

When Guadalupe came to work the next day, I showed her the book.  Eventually we worked through what it was.  "Otoño" is the word for autumn.  There are four books in the series, one for each season, so this one is actually A Story of Autumn.

Did I mention that my Spanish is extremely limited?  And that her English is nearly as limited as my Spanish?  I intended for her to borrow the book, take it home and read it to her 6-year-old daughter and bring it back.  I haven't read it yet, after all.

I'm not sure that's what actually happened.

little words make the difference

It's those pesky little adverbs and adjectives.  When learning a new language, you can't simply learn a whole bunch of nouns and think you're doing okay, although I've met some people who seem to believe that.  When you're desperately trying to convey an idea or a request, you have to know lots of those other words, like "tomorrow," "again," "before," "under," "in," etc.  Believe me, there's a boatload of them.

When I was in elementary school, I had elderly teachers who still taught reading and English the old way--by hammering in lessons on grammar and sentence structure, accompanied by page-long exercises ("find all of the grammatical errors in this story") and--holy cow!--sentence diagramming, which no one does any more.  What is the subject, the verb, the dependent clause, the prepositional phrase?  And they'd better be diagrammed correctly, because you just put it up on the chalkboards lining the classroom for everyone to see if you got it wrong. 

I'm not sure that many people today know what an adverb is.

Here's a test of your own skills:  keep track during a day of how many of those words you use to describe something, especially the "when, where and how" words.  We all use them more often than you would think. 

Now learn them in another language.  Good luck.

learning Spanish in a hurry

I have a new housekeeper who speaks very little English.  Until Sunday, I spoke very little Spanish.

I've always believed that total immersion is the best way to learn a language--sink or swim--and that's what I'm doing now.  Guadalupe is cheerful and patient, and while we work, we consult my Spanish-English dictionary fairly often.  We hunt for words, which frequently are not the right ones, resulting in some hilarious moments.  She offers me the right word if I choose the wrong one, and I help her to say something correctly in English.

By the end of the work day, I have a headache from trying to cram too many new words into my brain and sort out the grammar.  The time spent doing housekeeping seems to fly by, even though we take longer because of the dictionary breaks.

But each day when she is scheduled to work, I look forward to her arrival, armed with new questions and thoughts, and perhaps a funny story that I hope to convey in my still-poor Spanish.

H-O-W-D-Y. It's just five letters.

On a day trip on Route 66 in August, I came across this sign in one of those big gas station/souvenir stores.  There was a slight step down into the ladies' room.  But for Pete's sake--we're in the West.  You'd think people would know how to spell it.

"Howdy" is several steps removed from its origin.  Long ago, when introduced, society people would say, "How do you do?"  (Saying it like the Cheshire cat does in Alice in Wonderland is even more fun.)  The more common folk would say "ye" instead of "you" and eliminate some of the letters, resulting in "How d' ye do?"  Then it became "howdy-do?" and finally "howdy," and said simply as a greeting rather than a question.  That's how it became known out here in the West.

How would you pronounce "houdy?"  To me, that looks like "hoo-dy" or even "hew-dy," which would be something else altogether.

You would think that if someone was taking the time and money to make a sign or billboard, they'd make sure everything on it was correct.  Apparently the South Bend school district took the prize when they had a billboard put up touting the "15 great things about our public schools"--with one really key word misspelled.  Yep--that one.