In a surreal exchange, mediated by Carlos Ferrero MartÃn and Margaret Marks, and with the usual machine googleation, “in declarations conducted in Majorca days ago, our minister of Culture, Bald Carmen, pronounced the following phrase: ‘Before cook I was fraila’.” Whereupon the journalist said, ‘Bis bald, Carmen,’ but was severely beaten by the Balearic pun…
It is suggested that an old Spanish slang word has nothing at all to do with Dutch pirates but instead adds weight to David Kleinecke’s generally discarded South American etymology of the word “pidgin”.
Localisation – like most developments in publishing – has benefited greatly from the needs of the porn industry. “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse,” said Charles V of Spain, without, alas, going into detail. I assume, however, that his Italian will not have been the…
