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