The proceedings of the Old Bailey are now searchable to 1913. Apart from anything else they are an interesting source of information re the misfortunes of London’s Spanish population, from the refugees from Fernando VII to the anarchist trials in the 1890s. The following testimony to the traditional linguistic handicap of the Iberian tribes was…
La Vanguardia, 2008/4/21: “Piratas somalíes secuestran un atunero vasco. El ‘Playa de Bakio’ lleva 26 tripulantes, trece africanos, ocho gallegos y cinco vascos. Anoche, una fragata española acudía desde el mar Rojo a auxiliar al barco.” Victims from north of the Mediterranean are dissimilated on the basis of their autonomous community, while victims from the…
“In the sentence it is considered to have been proven that [in the church of St James of the Sword, Andalusia during a funeral] Refugio MS [74] approached the other woman saying, “I’m going to have your cunt, I’m going to have your cunt,” at the same time pinching her with her hand in her…
Xavi Caballé has read a book which suggests that the 18th century predecessors of the Norfolk Regiment were thus called because Spanish soldiers thought their Britannia badge represented the Virgin Mary. There’s another, more scurrilous version: Well, I got fond enough, after all, of the Holy Boys, as the old Ninth lads were called… You…
Or, as La Vanguardia has it, “El presunto parricida de su madre…“. I thought Eve had left the Garden of patriarchal vocabulary, or maybe this is just what happens when you’re paid by the word.
Surreal quote in this doc on personal adoptive languages, a typically absurd Belgian scheme to avoid civil war, appropriate EU funds, and inflict a tactical defeat on the Anglo-Saxons by having the Flemish learn French and the Walloons learn Dutch, instead of just letting everyone get on with their English classes: “An Le Nouail Marlière…
Is one of the all-time greats of popular Spanglish linguistics, so it is very much to be hoped that the NYT will again use the former after the next pirate raid off Barbary or in the Caribbean. There’s probably similar wordfun to be had in the South China Sea, but we don’t go there.
Or something along those lines. Jerry R Craddock clears up this and a number of other confusions in his excellent inaugural Disparatorio del suroeste. (Via Jesús Rodríguez Velasco). Galdós was politer in Trafalgar, but we all know what he meant. This one will run and run.
Items: Shasha: worn-out palm-broom. (Pott, Doppelung (Reduplikation, Gemination) als eines der wichtigsten Bildungsmittel der Sprache, beleuchtet aus Sprachen aller Welttheile (1862)) Gananciosa took a new-palm broom, which she found in the house, and with scratching it, made a sound, that though it was hoarse and rough, agreed well enough with [Escalanta’s] patten… Rinconete and Cortadillo…