Dawn

Dawn

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Stupid tuits; Good Spanish; Village names; Pontevedra's old quarter; & Taylor who??

Writing in El País yesterday, the estimable John Carlin wrote about the severe penalty to be paid these days for injudicious tweets (tuits in Spanish). "The social networks" he says "can be a weapon of mass destruction for people's reputations." Thank God, then, that I never write anything false, wrong or stupid.

Incidentally, Carlin is bi-lingual in English and Spanish and his articles in the latter are always noticeably easier to read than those of his El País colleagues. This is surely because his sentences are structured on the basis of English syntax. See here if you want to check this out. Or check out this, for those who don't approve of split infinitives.

Here's another example of this contention - an article originally written in English and then translated into Spanish. It lacks what we might call the floweriness of the latter, again making it easier to read. Shorter sentences being one reason. 

We have one or two strange village names around here - my favourite being Gatomorto, or 'Deadcat' - but nothing as odd as Castrillo Matajudios - or Little Hill Kill the Jews - down in Burgos province. Perhaps not surprisingly, after a mere 400 years, they've decided to change their name to Castrillo Motajudios. More here.

I gave a group of Brit 'pilgrims' a tour of Pontevedra's gem of an old quarter yesterday. Given they'd been up at 4.30 to avoid the heat, it wasn't too surprising that 1 or 2 of them were almost out on their feet as we set out. And prone after we'd finished. I enjoy giving these spontaneous tours but am, as they say, conflicted. I want people to see the best of Pontevedra but I don't want its secrets too exposed, resulting in more tourists. It's one of the joys of the place that - unlike Santiago - we don't have droves of these.

Finally . . . Should I be ashamed - or at least embarrassed - that I've never heard a song by the artist - Taylor Swift - who's forced the mighty Apple to make a swift(!) climb-down over not paying royalties to performers? Whatever, I'm sure she's not remotely worried about it.

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