Anyone who tries to learn a new language soon comes across words that are cognates, by definition, words that stem from the same source, as the German \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the English \u00e2\u20ac\u0153is.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure many a language learner has tripped up on yet another form of linguistic confusion, as when two identical words in different languages spell the same, are pronounced differently and have different meanings. In a Spanish class in high school, I once tripped over \u00e2\u20ac\u0153once,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which I thought meant \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but which our teacher reminded me meant the Spanish \u00e2\u20ac\u015311.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Additionally some constructions in this Las Vegas English-Spanish language bridge cause fits. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re taught that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jose\u00e2\u20ac\u009d begins with an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153h\u00e2\u20ac\u009d sound but when we apply that rule to Jose\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s girlfriend, Josie, we get laughed at.<\/p>\n
A fluent Spanish speaker, Lorenzo Flores, recently gave me a crash course in cross-linguistic spellings and pronunciations. A recent Work of Art column that mentioned a flee market in an empty lot across from Mills Plaza caught Flores\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attention. He set out to tell me about similar observations he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s made.<\/p>\n
Flores mentioned a liquor store on South Pacific Street that once carried a sign, in bold letters, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No Miners Allowed.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Clearly Flores, much younger then, must have wondered why that liquor establishment chose to discriminate, for example, against the hard-working men who make a living by extracting stuff from deep down.<\/p>\n
Questa, for example, has operated a large molybdenum mine; on a visit to the Meadow City, would they be forbidden entrance to the cantina?<\/p>\n
Flores said he asked the bar owner why such people were being excluded. Obviously, the bar owner had chosen the wrong word.<\/p>\n
Flores also mentioned a person at the Mills Avenue flea market whose sales were virtually non-existent. The booth operator was selling sweet corn, which we locals call \u00e2\u20ac\u0153maiz\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in Spanish. But he had written \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mice.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The word is pronounced almost like the English \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mice,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d except that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153maiz\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has two syllables. Lorenzo said he asked the man, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00c2\u00bfPorque quieres vender ratones?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as he noticed no rodents being transferred to customers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 shopping bags. That man corrected the sign and sales of the corn went up.<\/p>\n
Of course, one has to travel a hundred miles north, to the place named Raton to fully appreciate how that town got its name. Some say there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a formation in a nearby mountain that looks like a mouse. Regardless, has there ever been a more ridiculous name for a town? The top contenders for ill-named settlements are nearby Mosquero, which means a swarm of flies or a fly-catcher, and Polvadera, a dust storm or just dusty.<\/p>\n
And finally, Flores said he was present in the local courtroom when an elderly Spanish-speaking gentleman was in court on a land issue. The old man was asked how much of his property had been encroached upon by the defendant. The man, unable to speak English, responded with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153una media milla,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which the translator understood to be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153una media mia.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
And therein lies the pitfall in careless rendering of languages. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Una media milla\u00e2\u20ac\u009d means a half-mile. But \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Una media mia\u00e2\u20ac\u009d means \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a sock of mine,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the rendering of which induced laughter and disorder in the court.<\/p>\n
Lorenzo said he believed the mistranslation was serious enough to impel him, as a spectator, to speak up. After all, encroachment of a half mile of roadway is considerable; but who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to side with someone whose only loss was a sock of his?<\/p>\n
Flores said he was chided for speaking out in court, especially since he was not a party to the proceedings.<\/p>\n
But, Flores says, his speaking up helped set the record straight.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Try to recall a time when about $35 would fill up our tank, when gas was around $2 a gallon. It took a while for customers everywhere to get used to gas prices spiking by a dime a gallon a day.<\/p>\n
Once, as I was ready to feed my auto, my oldest son, Adam, said I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d better fill up in a hurry, as the price was likely to go up even as we poured the liquid. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strange that the gas in the station\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tanks, well below ground level, often becomes more valuable overnight, even though the station already has paid for it.<\/p>\n
It has taken time to realize that a tankful can easily cost $60. So what do we do with the many stranded motorists \u00e2\u20ac\u201d increasing in frequency \u00e2\u20ac\u201d who might wait all day next to their parked car, holding a sign that reads, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Need Gas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d?<\/p>\n
When I mention this increasingly common phenomenon, attributable to poverty, hard times, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the economy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or possibly even a con job, invariably I get the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153con job\u00e2\u20ac\u009d explanation. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t give them a penny,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d one friend said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They probably have more money than you do.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I consider the veracity of that assumption and admit (at least to myself) that no doubt I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been used, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been had. But yet. But yet. . .<\/p>\n
Who is con man enough to stand in July heat for several hours, hoping for a handout? The man I saw at the convenience stop near Romeroville seemed hungry, gaunt and impoverished.<\/p>\n
So I stopped and I asked him, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How far you going\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? But before I got the words out, he pointed to his Florida license plate and gave me the sign language signal that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a deaf mute. So we \u00e2\u20ac\u0153chatted\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for a while, me with the fingerspelling I learned from the late Clarence Falvey, and he going much faster than I could take it in.<\/p>\n
Well, he got 10 gallons of gas, charged to my debit card, took off, thanking me and making the sign of the cross before almost scraping bottom as his van jumped a curb in his haste to get back on the road.<\/p>\n
Was I conned? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. I rationalize by saying I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really need those $36 dollars I invested.<\/p>\n
But con or not, I feel better. Go ahead, call me a softie, if you wish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anyone who tries to learn a new language soon comes across words that are cognates, by definition, words that stem from the same source, as the German \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the English \u00e2\u20ac\u0153is.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure many a language learner has tripped up on yet another form of linguistic confusion, as when two identical words in different […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1109,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108\/revisions\/1109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}