I have mentioned the risks of translating metaphors literally from one language to another. Sometimes the idea is the same: for example the Spanish A caballo regalado, no le mires el dentado means the same as Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
A Spaniard who tells you that you can’t swim and guard your clothes (nadar y guardar la ropa) is saying that you can’t fulfil two incompatible objectives; in English we use a different metaphor for satisfying physical desire by saying that you can’t have your cake and eat it. And if in Spanish two birds are killed with the same shot (matar dos pájaros de un tiro), in English it is done with the same stone. Spanish metaphor has entered the modern world.
But the idea cannot always be the same in different cultures. That every cloud has a sliver lining is a common observation for anyone who is familiar with British weather; but, while grey clouds with silver-coloured fringes are not unknown* in Spain, they are far from being so common as to be the stuff of metaphor. The same idea is expressed quite differently by saying no hay mal que por bien no venga, which means that there’s no evil that doesn’t come for some good reason.
Sometimes the metaphor is obscure: No tiene dos dedos de frente (he hasn’t got two fingers of forehead) means that he’s as thick as a plank. The idea can, however, be turned round: Necesitas más de dos dedos de frente para ser doctor means that you need more than two fingers of forehead to be a doctor.
Another way to say in Spanish that someone is thick is to say that they are corto, which means short in English, implying a shortage of brainpower. Danger lurks; my mother-in-law was a short woman measuring just one and a half meters in height, but when my wife told a Spanish friend that her mother was corta, she gave quite the wrong impression. In Spanish she would be said to be baja. But there again, no-one – I hope – would say in English that their mother was low!
*In Politics and the English Language Orwell says that ‘banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation.’ While he may be right in some cases (and I hope to discuss that essay some time), here I am deliberately negating the possible, reasonable assumption that such a meteorological phenomenon would be unknown in the Mediterranean area.
(Images, Peter Harvey, Dos dedos de frente)
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