Bar or in vitro fertilisation clinic?

Vino en botella = he/she came in bottle, via Carlos from En la luna de Babel, who may also have been the source of the previous post. Meanwhile Mark Liberman is moving in on the French trade in hallucinogens.

Ciutadella – Historical Spanish Since 1965

Tom (who is these days blogging less and twittering more) encountered this proclamation on entering Ciudadela de Menorca, and suggests correctly that it refers to the publication in the Boletín Oficial del Estado of a fascist decree, promoted by education minister Manuel Lora Tamayo and signed off by Franco on Christmas Eve 1964, protecting the…

Singular = peculiar, parte de atrás (?) = back side

Don Colin continues his investigation of Spanish idiomcy and gents’ toilets. Although I have sung with one – flight is complicated for drunken guitarrists in mock-Renaissance robes – I don’t know what “poner una tuna” means. Various types of expert help required. (I get no ghits for “ruiero de combarro.”)

Circulate the spawns to the right, brother

Check out Lenox on the Dump in your Soup School of Translation. The belief that singular and plural, in this case anchovy and anchovies, are qualitatively distinct was also noted by early Soviet linguistic researchers as a barrier to collectivisation in the illiterate hordes of the Great Steppe. I will try to dig out the…

James Last, a bicycle trailer, and a pianola

From a tip by the Nun, the story that Hans’ dad, Louis, used to drive to gigs with a bicycle trailer containing bandoneon and drums, working entire evenings for four marks – this presumably before hyper-inflation. And at home there was an old (?!) electric piano with a remote music roll mechanism on which he…

Nikolaos Michaloliakos mistranslates Caesar

J tells me to take a longer look at the notorious clip featuring Mr Golden Dawn, which I confess I didn’t finish first time round, but which contains a nice “Veni, vidi, vici” moment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4AXJx3IzdY Stuff: Caesar’s comment allegedly came after defeating the Greek ruler of Pontus (whose hazelnuts inspired our al-bóndigas). I don’t think…

Suing fucked translators

I am told that translators all used to be self-employed and not worth suing, but that the slow advance of litigation in the market is changing all that. Phrases like “you can’t sue me for more than the value of this contract” won’t cut it, limited liability companies will need to be considered, and liability…