Category: translation

losing the thread

Amor, Amor
(after Garcilaso de la Vega)

Love offered me a cloth so fine and rich,

with folds so ample, I could not refuse

but sewed myself a habit, stitch by stitch.

I find the garment shrinks with daily use:

its generous measures pucker and draw tight,

I suffocate where once I’d room to spare;
I stretch and strain to free myself, I fight,

yet still the precious fabric will not tear.
Come, show me one who wants to cut these ties –

these homespun tapes we fashion for our lives

to bind ourselves to husbands or to wives –

and I will show you one who’s spinning lies.

Each wears the cloth he wove, though I confess

I wonder if mine’s shroud or wedding dress.

Continue reading “losing the thread”

crappy word choice

From the BBC Science & environment section:

"Ancient poo clue to environment: US scientists say they can track early human movements by analysing molecules in ancient faecal matter."
Is it just me, or is that badly phrased?

This may be an appropriate place to comment on how the Spanish have difficulty in distinguishing between the /b/ and the /v/ sounds. The two letters are pronounced the same in most parts of Spain.
Continue reading “crappy word choice”

sole-destroying

I hate it when previously comfortable shoes get rough on the inside and start to rub blisters. But if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post, so I guess there’s a silver lining. Or perhaps a latex or leather one.

insoles package label. Spanish / English
Before I went on my last trip I bought insoles at the local todo a cien**. How could I resist a product described as:

ventilative, bibulous and can avoid foot stink and ache.

Personally, I much prefer “ventilative” to the more common “breathable”. After all, air is breathable, which is quite a different quality to that of the materials insoles are made of.
Continue reading “sole-destroying”

fragments

The photo shows what was going on on my verandah once the sun warmed up this morning and brought the wasps out to feed on a small corpse which I assume was left there by the cats.

wasps scavenging at a cricket corpse
The villagers here in Spain would call it a langosta, I think. Even with my limited knowledge of the animal world, I do know it’s not a lobster, but I’m not sure if it was actually a locust, a cricket, a grasshopper or a katydid. Whatever it was, though:
Continue reading “fragments”

write – edit – censor

censorship
I know a number of people who work for Spanish publications and call themselves redactores. Until recently, I thought they were simply writers.

Looking at the RAE gives a single meaning for redactar:

1. tr. Poner por escrito algo sucedido, acordado o pensado con anterioridad.

This doesn’t help me much, so I checked with a Spanish friend from the world of publishing who told me that redactar is not the same as escribir as it involves drawing together ideas and editing them into a coherent form. One example he gave was “you can’t redactar a shopping list.”
Continue reading “write – edit – censor”