MPSPRNTS

In Winny de Puh ( and El Rincón de Puh) there is a standing joke about the terrible spelling of Owl (Wol) and Christopher Robin... and it's interesting to look at the way it is done in the English version and the spanish version.

When Pooh goes round to Owl's house, he finds two messages.... in English they read..


PLES RING IF AN RNSER IS REQIRD

and PLEZ CNOKE IF AN RNSR IS NOT REQID

and even when I was 10 or so I loved the double joke in these messages.

Anyway, here's how the Winny de Puh translator Izabel Gortazar deals with them...

LLAMR ENSACO DURJENZIA

and NO YAMAR ENKSO DE HURGENSIA

and just to be a smart-arse, in Latin the translator, Alexander Lenard, does this..

CUESO SONA AES SI RSPONSM VIS


and CUESO PULSA SI RSPONSM NON VIS

and then a few lines further on, we find that Christoper Robin wrote these signs because Owl was quite a good speller, but often got confused beteween words like

MEASLES and BUTTERED TOAST

in the Spanish these come out as HIPECACUANA and HUEVOSFRITOS

Of course, he spells his own name WOL ... in the Spanish Owl is called BUHO, and he spells it VUO .

In El Rincón de Puh, Christopher Robin leaves a mysterious note oh his front door, which Milne writes as....

GON OUT
BACKSON
BISY
BACKSON

In Spanish this turns into...

ESA LIDO
BULBOPROTO
OQPADO
BULBOPROTO

Wol/Owl then gets the uneasy feeling that a Backson is involved, and suggests it could be the Spotted or Herbaceous Backson. This comes out in Spanish as a BULBOPROTO MOTEADO O HERBACIO which is pretty close.

and of course we all know what he is doing, he has started school....so when the signs are rewritten at the end of the chapter, they are written correctly. No fun there at all.

Now.... altering these words so that they are still more or less readable, and yet making them funny at the same time, is very language-specific and hard to "translate" from one language to another, and obviously is not the srot of thing you are going to find in a dictionary, or a book of idioms, or slang.... it's really a "native-speaker" job.

The sad thing is, I've just about finished the books, and it is a very sad ending as well.

To cheer us all up, here's Santi Balmas and Los Seis Dias with the very cheerful Te Odio..



Thanks to adictivos.com for these lyrics..

LOS SEIS DIAS - Te Odio

Te odio por la nota que dejaste al despertar
huyendo
te odio por los dias que has estado sin estar
dentro de mi
Te odio
Por dejarme a medias antes de llegar al extasis
Te odio
Por tu boca que carece de verdad
Y sigue asi
Te odio
Como nadie en este mundo te odiara
Te odio
Como no se puede odiar a nadie mas
Te odio
Por que siempre sigues
siempre sigues
siempre sigues, ahí

te odio
tanto que podria hacerte resucitar del miedo
olvidaste llevar el cuaderno en el que solias preguntar
cuantos dias quedaban para vernos
tengo el corazon a punto de estallar

te odio
como nadie en este mundo te odiara
te odio
como no se puede odiar a nadie mas
te odio (x 6).

Spam, amps, pam's, MAPS

As you might have already guessed, today I am writing about maps.

The other day, in a junk shop as usual, I bought for the paltry sum of 90p a lovely map of the Spanish Coast. For completists, it is a Hildebrand's Travel Map , Spanish Coast 1, featuring the Costa Brava and the Costa Blanca ( 1:900 000 ) with, thrown in , a general map of the whole of Spain ( 1:2 500 000 ).

A bargain.... it's a lovely-looking thing, as I hope you can see from these rather underwhelming snaps I took of bits of it this morning.

So.... here's what you do..... you open the map, and you look at all the towns, villages etc and their fascinating names... you get your dictionary and... you start trying to work out what they mean.

Here's some I did earlier...

Some are just obvious straight away... Costa Blanca...Aguaviva.... Belmonte... La Estrella... Las Fuentas... well, maybe that's not so obvious, it's the fountains.

What about some less obvious ones..

Cabra de Mora Well, Cabra = a goat, and Mora is a Mulberry. Is this a spot where the goats eat Mulberries, or the Mulberries smell like goats, or did a Mulberry once fall on a goat and kill it? History, eh!

Peñagolosa Peña = a rock or cliff and Golosa = greedy or sweet-toothed. This could therefore indicate that there is a cliff which has taken a lot of lives ( greedy) or a cliff where Mars Bars are sold... who knows?

Aldahuela Now this is a good one... Alda = a village, and huela seems to be " a smell" or smelly ( I think) so is it/was it a smelly village, or did the villagers smell?

Arnés Easy peasy... it means Armour..... but why? Maybe they made armour there, or alweays wore armour to protect themselves from goats driven mad by eating too many fermenting mulberries.

Onda Another easy one.. it's a wave, just like it is in Latin.

Albores Well, albor = dawn .... make what you will of that.

Oropesa Oro = gold, pesa = weight.... no doubt there is good reason for that.

Garabaya A more awkward one this.... Garabato = a hook, scrawl, scribble or rather amazingly, sex appeal (?). Baya = a berry. Hmmm.

Some are pretty inscrutable... make what you will of these..

Camarillas ( Camara = a room or chamber, Camarillas = little rooms ??)
El Pobo
Noguerelas
Valacloche
Foz de Calanda ( fos = a grave, calar = to soak/drench/pierce/penetrate... maybe someone opened up a grave.

Now, you might ask... so what?

Well, it's interesting, sometimes odd/quirky/amusing...and while you are doing your research you are using that dictionary, looking at new words, they will be memorable as well... you might even delight your few remaining friends by passing some of your more amazing derivations on.You can't lose! Refreshingly, it doesn't really matter if your derivation is wide of the mark... you've learned a few new words, you've had an interesting time...and even the very best place-name derivations often turn out to be wrong.

Duly impressed... well, I hope you will also be impressed by Julieta Venegas and her performance of Está Vez

It's from her "Unplugged" album.I like unplugged... usually.



Here's the words... they seem OK, but I'm not sure what the strange scat-like words are right at the end. Lovely performance...

ESTA VEZ

Esta vez
somos de papel
somos la corteza de un árbol
que nada tiene que ver
con el sudar del viento

Somos servilleta
y el recibo de luz,
somos servilleta
y el recibo de luz

Esta vez somos de papel
Somos las infracciones
y las hojas de la biblia
Esta vez somos honestos

Somos servilleta
y el recibo de luz,
somos servilleta
y el recibo de luz

Esta vez somos de papel
somos las infracciones
esta vez somos honestos
para siempre
para siempre
para siempre

.. more stuff I can't find..

Yesterday I talked, amongst other things, about intelligent/witty rap and hip-hop, which seems not to exist in Spanish. I even gave you a few examples of what I take to be "good" rap music in French and English.... have a look... maybe you know some Spanish bands which do this.

Anyhow, while I am on that theme, what about particular types of novel... for instance, are there any Spanish novels or plays which are witty, comical, and intelligent all at the same time... ? some examples of the sort of thing I mean....

[a] Nice Work and other David Nobbs novels.
[b] The Knights Tale ... Trevor Jones... well that isn't actually a novel!
[c] Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
[d] Catch 22 ( Joseph Heller)... I've got the Sp. translation ( Trampa 22)
[e] Money... Martin Amis
[f] Arcadia... a play by Tom Stoppard
[g] Barcelona Plates... short stories by Alexei Sayle
[h] One for the Money ... Janet Evanovich

If you have read some of these and know a Spanish author with a similar style, I would like to know, and I bet lots of other people would too.

Here's another question.... I find it very easy to get CDs of brilliant French bands at reasonable prices on Amazon or amazon.fr.... bands like Noir Desir, Saez, Diam's, Dolly etc.

When I try this with Spanish bands... like the ones I have been featuring in this blog... I find they are very very expensive and/or unavailable, and there isn't as far as I know, a Spanish version of Amazon.

Does anyone know of a way of getting round this situation?

I seem to be asking a lot of questions lately without telling you anything very useful... I will nxt time, OK ? In the meantime..

I wanted to show you this song a while ago but "they" wouldn't let me.... but they seem to have changed their mind.... it's Diez Minutos by Efecto Mariposa....



here's the ( unchecked as yet) words...

Lyrics to Diez Minutos :
La calle esta vacia,
hay lluvia en el cristal,
la calle esta tan fria y no te veo pasar,
y hoy te espero te espero,
y desespero en tu ausencia.

Quisiera tocarte, acercarme un poco mas,
pero sé que estas tan lejos, al verte pasar,
en tan solo diez minutos,
nuestra historia que empieza, se acaba.

[Estribillo]
Y si fuera capaz de mirarte
y decir lo que siento.
Si pudiera tenerte mas tiempo,
del tiempo que tengo.
Si pudieras venir a mi lado
tan solo un momento.
Si solo fuera capaz de romper el silencio,
y no tenerte en el tiempo.

Quisiera descubrirte, estar dónde tu estás,
mirar desde tus ojos, poder ir dónde tu vas.
En mi torre te espero, y desespero en tu ausencia.

Porque éres la razón de mi ser,
mi anhelo, mi perder, destino.
Ahora solo vuelve quedate,
diez minutos conmigo, conmigo.

[Estribillo]
Y si fuera capaz de mirarte
y decir lo que siento.
Si pudiera tenerte mas tiempo,
del tiempo que tengo.
Si pudieras venir a mi lado
tan solo un momento.
Si solo fuera capaz de romper el silencio,
y no tenerte en el tiempo.

Y si fuera capaz de mirarte
y decir lo que siento.
Si pudiera tenerte mas tiempo,
del tiempo que tengo.
Si pudieras venir a mi lado
tan solo un momento.
Si solo fuera capaz de romper el silencio.

Y si fuera capaz de mirarte
y decir lo que siento.
Si pudiera tenerte mas tiempo,
del tiempo que tengo.
Si pudieras venir a mi lado
tan solo un momento.
Si solo fuera capaz de romper el silencio,
y no tenerte en el tiempo.


(Gracias a Nuubee_x por esta letra)
[ Diez Minutos Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]

¿..does such music exist..?

Well, as you might have noticed, I've "revised" the blog title.... the previous title was pretty boring.... and I hope this new name better reflects the nature of what I write. I hope.

In view of that, I want to start with a comic book... Mortadelo, by Francisco Ibáñez. The one pictured isn't the one I've got... mine is a great thick thing with lots of his stuff in.

His work seems highly slapstick-oriented, and his antiheroes are always getting squashed or boiled or having 80000 volts coursing through them. It's full of lovely spanish exclamations, phrases, exhortations.... plus some amazing onomatopoeic words as well.

All great fun, if not the absolute apex of intellectual literature.

Next section... I want to engage you readers.... in a quest. As you are aware, I love to find clever, beautiful, interesting or quirky Spanish-language music for me, and to show you.

But there are some things I can't find. What things, you ask....

Well, I can't find any Rap/Hip-hop which is done with wit/intelligence in Spanish.All that I can find is the usual posturing musclemen jigging around and being disgusting. To show you what I mean by "good" sorts of rap/hip-hop, here is an English one ( Scroobious Pip) and a French one ( Diam's).

What I want you to tell me is, who is doing this sort of thing in Spanish??????

Here we go... Diam's first with the lovely Enfants du Désert. Lovely song, beautiful video....



Now Scroobious Pip with The Beat that my Heart skipped... it's catchy, clever, witty.... he's such a confident performer...



OK, the ball's in your court... where is the Spanish-language equivalent?

And now the ever-popular Music Spot ( well, I like it anyway)......
a brilliant, beautiful live song from Vetusta Morla.... A Tientas .....



Brilliant guitar playing too... What a song!

Well, after many tries I have found the lyrics on a Vetusta Morla forum... though the writer does say at the end that he is not sure of a few things... listening through it there seems to be a couple of verses missing at the front, and there are some looping backs which aren't indicated. It's a start though.

Tus latidos dicen, "Nunca más"
Hoy nadie mira hacia atrás
Vuela alto en tu caballo de seda (roja)

Tus latidos dicen, "Nunca más"
Hoy nadie mira hacia atrás
Vuela alto en tu caballo de seda

Miras y ríes por no llorar
Ríes para cantar
una historia forzada sin principio ni final

Una historia de princesas
que no tienen reino
que no tienen rumbo

Viven a tientas
con un sueño a cuestas
en su cabeza

¿Hasta dónde tú quieres llegar?
Dice aquel señor de barba espesa
Con sorpresa por verte cambiada

¿Hasta dónde tú quieres llegar?
Dice aquel señor de barba espesa
"NO SABER QUÉ VA A PASAR EN TU CABEZA"
----

De lo de SIN HACER NAAAA no estoy muy segura.. no me acuerdo y se escucha un poco mal, pero a ver si os suena bien a vosotros.

Otra cosa, de las dos versiones de A tientas, en una parece que dice "HISTORIA FORJADA" y en otra "FORZADA"... ¿qué opináis?

ALa, y con esto ya os dejo en paz un ratito..jajaja