Lavengro

Mistakes Spanish-speakers make

In my publicity for Great English Mistakes I list some typical mistakes made by Spanish-speakers. I have been asked for explanations of them.

• People is kind.
Should be: People are kind.
Explanation: In Spanish the word for “people” (gente) is singular.

• Which is your phone?
Should be: What is your phone number? The Spanish would be: ¿Cuál es tu teléfono?
Explanation:
1) “Cuál” conventionally translates as “which” so Spanish-speakers say “which” in questions with unlimited possibilities.
2) The Spanish form does not include the word for number.

• I am interesting to know you.
Should be: I am interested to know you.
Explanation: A common mistake with no obvious cause.

• How many children you have?
Should be: How many children do you have / have you got?
Explanation: Spanish ¿Cuántos hijos tienes? The verb (tienes) is not marked as a question. The meaning is shown by the context, with intonation in speech and punctuation in writing.

• I am sorry, I am constipated.
Should be: I am sorry, I have a cold.
Explanation: Spanish “constipado” refers to a blocked nose.

• I forgot my books at home.
Should be: I left my books at home.
Explanation: Spanish-language interference.

• I came walking.
Should be: I came on foot.
Explanation: Spanish-language interference.

• My car is in the parking.
Should be: My car is in the car park.
Explanation: “Parking” is the Spanish for car park.

• Is very beautiful your sister.
Should be: Your sister is very beautiful.
Explanation: Spanish often starts a sentence with a verb followed by the subject.

• My fathers live in Zaragoza.
Should be: My parents live in Zaragoza.
Explanation: In Spanish “padre” is “father” but “padres” is “parents”. This applies generally, e.g. “rey” is “king” but “los reyes de España” is “the King and Queen of Spain”.

When is a word a word?

When is a word a word and when is it two words, or even three? A strange thing about English is its ability to assimilate different words into the same form.

bow
There are two words with the same spelling. One of these words has two pronunciations but its meanings all relate to the idea of bending.

pronounced /[email protected]/
It is the thing used to shoot an arrow. It is a knot made with two loops, typically used to tie shoelaces or worn by girls in their hair or in a bow tie. The elbow is the joint where the arm bends in the middle.

pronounced /baU/
There are two different words with this pronunciation.

The first is the verb related to the noun described above. It means to bend forward from the waist as a mark of respect. To bow your head is to let it fall forward as a sign of humility or shame. To be bowed down with care is to be oppressed by it. To take a bow is to recognise applause or congratulation, literally or metaphorically.

The other word is the rounded or pointed part at the front of a ship. Another form of this second word, bough (with the same pronunciation), is a poetical word for the branch of a tree. Most native speakers are not aware that these words have different origins.

case
The word case represents two separate words that have no etymological connection.

A case is a container that is specifically designed to contain one particular item: cigarette case, glasses case, pen/pencil case. A suitcase is used for carrying clothes. A briefcase is a container used for carrying papers; the reference is to the use of the word brief to refer to the notes that a barrister uses.

Lower case and upper case letters are other names for small letters and capital letters respectively. Printers used to keep the small letters in the lower part of the case in which they kept their type and the capital letters in the upper part of it.

From a different origin, it means an example or occurrence of something: An interesting case. A case of meningitis and is used as a grammatical term

A case meaning a container, a suitcase for example, or upper- and lower-case letters, has a different origin from a case as an example, phenomenon, a case of malaria or the nominative case.

Then suffix -most, found in topmost, northernmost, and similar words, is not the same as the superlative adverb in most difficult.

punch
This means to hit with a closed fist; it can be used as a noun (throw a punch). It also means to make a hole in paper, metal, leather etc. and is the name of the tool used for doing so. You can punch a piece of metal or punch a hole in a piece of metal.

policy
A policy /"pQlIsi/ is the course of action or strategy adopted by a government, company, other organisation, or an individual. A document stating the terms and conditions of an insurance contract is also called a policy.

These are different words. As a course of action it is related to polite and police. The word policy as used in insurance terms is from French, and probably ultimately from Greek apodeixis meaning evidence, proof.

pool
A pool is a small body of water occurring naturally. Pools suitable for swimming in are called swimming pools, but now swimming pools are usually artificial.

A pool is also the result of people contributing money or other resources to a common fund. Businesses may pool their capital; friends on holiday together may pay money into a pool for food and other common expenses. The pools (usually plural) is a system of betting on football matches where the money paid is pooled and distributed to the winner or winners; this idea also lies behind the name of the game pool, which is similar to billiards and snooker.

Some companies and other large organisations have a car pool where cars are provided in common for employees, a group of friends or neighbours might organise a car pool to take each other’s children to school, and journalists in difficult conditions might form a pool to exchange information that they have gathered.

Although these two words (pool of water and common resources) have different origins, they are associated in the minds of many people.

All of the above definitions derive ultimately meaning a gate. The person responsible for guarding the gate of a town or building derives from the Latin porta. However, a different origin (Latin portare) gives the word porter as someone who carries things, especially luggage at railway stations and airports.

Found (create, originate), founder (sink) and foundry (a place where metal is worked) are all different in origin.

This is based on articles in my A Guide to English Language Usage from Lavengro Books.

Unpublished

You might think that an unpublished book was one that had never been presented to the public. And if so you’d be right, for the Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines the word as:

adj. (of a work) not published. > (of an author) having no writings published.

and the Oxford English Dictionary has:

1.a Not made generally known or accessible, esp. in print.

1.b Of an author: having had no writings published.

2 Not divulged or disclosed.

Neither dictionary offers any other meaning. However, Amazon (and possibly other publishers) have given it a new meaning: removal from sale of a book that has already been published. That is to say, first it is published and then it is unpublished.

 

 

It occurs to me that the prefix un- does have two meanings. This use in unpublished is the same as unplugged and untied, where something that has been done in undone and is different from unknown and unwritten, where something has not yet been done.

 

 

Security and safety

Returning after a regrettably long absence I would like to mention something that I saw on Trip Adviser. A hotel in Spain was replying to a customer who had complained that the hotel didn’t have irons for hire. The response was that this was the hotel’s policy ‘for security reasons’.

Clearly they mean safety, not security; there is an obvious fire risk in hotel guests using irons in their rooms. The root of the problem is that Spanish seguridad covers two concepts that are clearly differentiated in English.

As I say in A Guide to English Language Usage:

Both of these are to do with protection from danger.

Safety is protection from natural risks: The flooded river threatened the village’s safety; or unintentional man‑made dangers: safety at work; the safety of drugs. Note the endings of the abstract nouns: safety but unsafeness.

Security is protection against deliberate human activity: The company’s security department is investigating the theft; A security guard is on duty at the factory all night.

Safety regulations ensure that an aeroplane can fly with the minimum risk of mechanical or human failure. Security staff ensure that terrorists do not board the plane. Safety at work refers to physical safety in the workplace; job security is the certainty that you will not lose your job.

A security is a name for a financial instrument such as a share certificate. Security for a loan is the valuable object that is offered as a guarantee of repayment.

And more succinctly in Great English Mistakes:

The Spanish word seguridad corresponds to two different but connected ideas in English. Safety tells us whether a thing is physically safe. Security is related to prevention of risk from human activity. So in an airport the safety check makes sure that the wings will not fall off the plane and the security check makes sure that no bombs are on board the plane. Sometimes seguridad has to be translated as safety and security in English.

 

For information about these books, visit the Lavengro Books website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/articles_print.cfm?ID=1166

Outstanding

Outstanding is an ambiguous word. Something that stands out is different from the rest. An outstanding result is an extraordinary one, and the word is specifically positive; on its own it implies excellence. But something that is a matter that still has to be dealt with or a debt that has not been paid is also said to be outstanding.

A similar word is overlook. A hotel room can overlook the sea or you can overlook (i.e. ignore) a mistake that someone has made. The basic meaning is the same but in one case by looking out the sea you can see it from above while on the other by figuratively looking over a mistake at something else you do not see what is below you.

Explanation of my posts in the series …has no word for…

[Classical Latin] was the only language in which it was possible to hold an intellectual discussion, as the vernacular languages of the time lacked adequate vocabulary.
Alessandro Barbero, Charlemagne

Language teachers and translators know that there are words that present a real problem when an equivalent has to be found in another language. This is not (usually) because the concept does not exist but because what is perceived as one idea in one language is divided into many smaller concepts in another or is expressed by a circumlocution. The main exception of course is to be found in cultural or natural phenomena that exist in one language area but not in the other. In these cases the word is usually taken over directly: tundra, vodka, matador, canyon and veldt would be examples of this in English.

I know that Geoff Pullum says: Whenever you hear someone starting to say something that begins with "The X have no word for Y", or "The X have N different words for Y", never listen to them, and always check your wallet to make sure it's still there.

He is right to the extent that he is talking in terms of theoretical linguistics. In this series of posts I am looking at the practical difficulties faced by teachers and translators who are constantly having to find equivalent expressions in different languages in order to facilitate learning or understanding.

… has no word for: shallow

 

This is the first in a series of …has no word for… which will be posted at 06.00 Central European Time on Tuesdays. for an explanation of the title, click here

* * * * *

Shallow is a strange word. It is the opposite of deep, having no meaning in itself and only being defined negatively. The OED defines it as:

Not deep, having little extension in a downward direction: said e.g. of water, of a dish or tray, of a depression or excavation in the ground.

Shallowness cannot be measured; it can only be understood as the opposite of depth. A swimming-pool has a shallow end and a deep end but both have depth: the shallow end may be 50cm deep.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Spanish, like other Romance languages, has no word for shallow (though German has seicht). The usual translation in Spanish would be poco profundo. Although poco means little, in fact in such constructions it is effectively a negation so the Spanish for shallow is not deep..

That is when it comes to measuring vertical depth, a swimming-pool, a river, a well, a grave etc. But a shallow dish could be a plato llano (flat plate), which could also be a dinner plate.

In English we take a deep breath of breathe deeply; shallow breathing is a sign of some problem. In Spanish this is respiración superficial and the same word could refer to a shallow person. That could also be superficial in English but a shallow conversation might be frívolo or banal.

A slope can be shallow. This is the opposite of steep. In Spanish it is poca or baja pendiente (little or low slope). Here poca is not a negative and does mean little.

 

 

Images: Wikimedia Commons. Shallow Stream in Rock Hill NY. Woman in shallow end of swimming-pool.

Spherical fields

A student submitting work by email is translating la esfera de la enseñanza. He asks:

Peter, in which cases do we use “sphere” instead or “field”, are they perfect synonyms?

It seems that in this sense they are for practical purposes. The Concise Oxford Dictionary says:

field: a particular branch of study or sphere of activity.

sphere: an area of activity, interest, or expertise;

Literally Spanish

The non-literal use of literally to strengthen an expression is a recurrent theme of English language comment. The usage is also found in Spanish as we see in El País (my emphasis):

Pero la situación había llegado a un punto en el que Obama se veía, literalmente, con las manos atadas, no ya para sacar adelante las reformas prometidas, sino para garantizar el funcionamiento básico de las instituciones judiciales fundamentales.

But the situation had reached the point where Obama literally found his hands tied, not just to go ahead with the promised reforms but to ensure the basic working of the fundamental legal institutions.

The Spanish Royal Academy’s Dictionary does accept this meaning:

Que debe entenderse en la plenitud de su sentido la palabra a la cual acompaña. Estoy literalmente extenuado.

The word that it accompanies to be understood in its full meaning. I am literally exhausted.

The evolving OED

There is an interesting article in the Financial Times about the evolution of the Oxford English Dictionary, describing its past and looking to the future of this venerable and greatly respected work.

Hat-tip to Susan Purcell, the Virtual Linguist. I have posted myself about the scale of revising the OED.