it rings a bell

This headline has caught my attention:

Whether it was in any way connected with Global Handwashing Day, which fell a few days ago, I don’t know.

It was of course the use of the verb “ring” that caught my eye. I’m pretty sure that even in American English that should be “wring”.

Actually, there was far more to set me thinking in the article, which started off:

Bridgewater pediatrician and father of five Dr. Fred Kern is prescribing a common sense approach to swine flu.
He said the virus is no cause for panic.
“For the vast majority of cases, swine flu is a mild illness,” said Kern, a former member of the Bridgewater-Raynham Regional School Committee.
On the other hand, it is important to take the virus, H1N1, seriously because it is a potentially serious illness, he said.
That means taking precautions such as careful hand-washing, covering your mouth with your elbow when you cough, staying home when you have flu-like symptoms and not going back to school or work until you have been fever-free for 24 hours.

(Emphasis added by me.)

My father used to say tell us that we should only rub our eyes if we did so with our elbows, which, of course, is a physical impossibility and a piece of advice that may help distract kids from damaging their sight. He never said anything about covering our mouths with our elbows when we coughed, though. I think that, at least for me, is another impossibility.

I read on, but the headline was still niggling. It started me thinking of the Spanish verb “sonar” which is how you’d translate “ring” in phrases like el teléfono sonó.

Sonar is also used in the idiomatic expression “it rings a bell” – me suena. Or as the RAE puts it:

Dicho de una cosa: Ofrecerse vagamente al recuerdo como ya oída anteriormente.

The verb has plenty of other meanings, too. Usually taking the reflexive form, it can be:

Limpiar de mocos las narices, haciéndolos salir con una espiración violenta.

– a neatly academic explanation of the English idiom, “to blow your nose”.

Elsewhere, I’ve pontificated on the fact that word endings are far more important in Spanish than they are in English, and that the native English speaker’s habit of converting unstressed vowels to schwa sounds exacerbates the problem. I can’t be the only one who has difficulty in hearing the difference between me suena and me sueno in normal conversation.

It’s less of a problem when speaking, though, so when my partner assures me that he told me something but I have absolutely no memory of the conversation, I am not very likely to tell him, “I don’t blow my nose.”

Of course, si me sonase, I’d have to “catch it, bin it, kill it” and then go and wash my hands. But not, perhaps, ring them.

Author: don't confuse the narrator

Exploring the boundary between writer and narrator through first person poetry, prose and opinion View all posts by don't confuse the narrator