Why aren’t the Andalusians building the Middle East’s new walls?

Scott has made a handy list of Trumpian walls being built across the still-smouldering Ottoman Empire, and a quick check reveals that none of them appear to be being built by Spanish contractors. Now, around Spain local governments are renovating, but more usually simply new-building medieval (Moorish) walls for the tourist trade (in monstrous contravention,…

Funding the hole in Spain’s pension pot left by Rajoy’s economic miracle

Maybe it’s me, but my impression is that the quality of official EU translation has deteriorated quite sharply in the past few years. But I think we all know, in article 60 of the IORPs Directive, which the Commission is trying to smuggle past national parliaments without discussion or publicity on this busy summer weekend,…

Thomas More endorses the siesta

Of the twenty-four equal hours into which they divide the day and the night, the Utopians devote only six to work. They work three hours before noon, when they go to lunch. After lunch, they rest for two hours, then go to work for another three hours. Then they have supper, and about eight o’clock…

Filho/a da puta

I fear a British employment tribunal is about to give undue weight to an exceptionally everyday Portuguese curse. But José “translator” Mourinho should be able to wriggle his way out of that, and if he can’t then he can probably afford it.

Degerundisation in Furrin

In Spanish etc., campsite > camping, carpark > parking, etc., but then in German happy ending > happy End. Who cares? End is a genital euphemism in English, so a happy ending in a London massage parlour loses nothing in translation. The Happy End of Georg Anton Benda’s version of Romeo and Juliet is more…

Untranslatability

To the extent that she is not merely chucking us clickbait, Elena Horrillo’s piece on supposedly untranslatable Spanish expressions suggests she hasn’t read the English Wikipedia article, some of which has been translated into Spanish. Translating difficult expressions, sayings and proverbs like those cited was already a minor industry in the late Middle Ages (anyone…