From Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest:
CECILY […] This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.
GWENDOLYN [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
I wonder how different the average Spaniard’s social sphere is from that of the average angloparlante.
In Spanish the ‘call it by its name’ idiom is llamar al pan, pan y al vino, vino. Bread, I can understand, as one of the basic foodstuffs, but, at least in the UK, wine would hardly be traditional; it’d probably have been ale or cider.
But we Brits like to call a spade a spade, and, despite its English connotations of simplicity, trying to do so in Spanish causes us problems.
For a start, there’s the false cognate espada which is actually a sword. What social commentary might we invent from the fact that English speakers use a word for an agricultural implement where hispanohablantes use it as an accessory for deeds of derring-do? Different social spheres indeed.
Then there’s the easy confusion between words that vary only in their final letter – and thereby their gender – and so take on a different meaning. Thus, pala is spade or shovel, but palo is a wooden club, or the blow inflicted by such, and a simple “give me a spade” runs the risk of being a request to “beat me up.”
Making it “the spade” doesn’t help either, as la pala is slang for cocaine.
Really, it’s very easy to feel foreign at times: I want to get digging in the garden and instead I risk getting caught up in drugs and wife-battering. I want to call a spade a spade and instead I get offered bread and wine.
Ah well, why fight it? It’s too hot for gardening anyway. So, pour me a drink and I’ll fetch some cheese…
don't confuse the narrator 