02/05/2010 – Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder

A spurious demonic etymology of “Andaluz”

Taken from a 17th century play which has the devil fly a student over Madrid and reveal to him its innermost secrets.

<a href='http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuente_del_%C3%81ngel_Ca%C3%ADdo'>El Ángel Caído</a> by Ricardo Bellver in El Retiro, Madrid. Photo <a href='http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:El_%C3%81ngel_Ca%C3%ADdo_%28Ricardo_Bellver%29_MRABASF_03.jpg'>CC</a> by Luis García/Zaqarbal on Wikimedia Commons.

SUV, “vehículo deportivo”

Re the Times Square car bomb, José M Guardia comments on the mistranslation of Chelsea tractor by Cadena Ser and others. While their minds may well be as furry as porcine slurry, the marketing of a vehicle allegedly (where?) designed for exotic and perilous deserts to surgically improved mums to transport their precious tots half…

The true origins of “Africa begins at the Pyrenees”

This deeply resented peripheralising aphorism was coined not by Alexander Dumas but by Dominique Dufour de Pradt or conceivably the Conde do Funchal.