A man who has been away for twenty years walks into the bar. The young waiter looks up at him and says, “You’re barred.” “Yes,” he replies, “but how did you know?”
Q: How do you form a Spanish barbarism from an English word beginning with “s”? A: Easy, you add a preliminary “e”, so that, for example, smoking (ie a dinner jacket, a tuxedo) becomes esmoquin. Q: How do you correct a Spanish barbarism beginning with “es”, thus demonstrating to your Spanish public your intimate knowledge…
For a modernising party, Ciutadans have got off to a terrible start in their dealings with the new media, including some quite startling and prolonged incompetence in dealing with the guys at Nihil Obstat and Barcepundit. Now it seems that Ernesto Hernández Busto has been told by those on high to turn off Ciutadans en…
Just had a chat with an associate of “Tío Lele”, responsible for a protection, ahem, scheme in Poble Nou and other parts. It is said that everyone’s favourite uncle is a bit disturbed about the apparent lack of progress on his website, which it had been understood would be appearing on OkieDokie.com.
I know a little bit about the subject but not enough to figure why Blake uses the definite article in the hellish proverb “Expect poison from the standing water.” (Neither can others, which is why “Expect poison from standing water” gits almost as many ghits (currently 400:382 in favour of literal accuracy).
Thomas Wright, Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English: For they say the king of Portugal cannot sit at his meat, but the giants and the ettins will come and snatch it from him. (Beaumont and Fletcher, The knight of the burning pestle (1613)) I think that means that an ettin/eten/etayn is not, or is not…
Here, via WonkaPistas. If we forget Oaxaca and a couple of other disfunctional states, then in Mexico we find a much greater interest in providing value for money for parents and children than in Spain, where it is widely accepted that individual rights should be subordinated to those of invented collectives. You don’t have to…