Spanish speakers are never "under the weather"

The signs have been appearing, in both English and Spanish, in the NYC subway system.

The English one says "Feeling under the weather?" and then contains some text about how, if you are not feeling well, it's better to stay in the station and ask for help than to get on the train and risk holding up the whole system when you pass out/die/hemorrhage. The graphic is of an umbrella, with some, er ... spheres hovering above it, which is unrelated to any use I've ever had for an umbrella.

Update: The spheres above the umbrella are giant aspirin tablets.

The Spanish language version contains the same graphic, except the text says "Not feeling well?" because the expression "under the weather" does not so much exist in Spanish. Meaning that any Spanish speakers reading this poster are just going to be like What the fuck is up with that umbrella?"

Dios Escucha!

Here is what I look like in my hotel room in Houston:


You know, in the cab on the way to the hotel, I saw a billboard that said "Dios Escucha." Oh, I thought: God is listening. But then as we passed the billboard, I saw the English version on the other side: "God listens." Wow, I thought. Those are two very different statements. The first one is admonishing, the second perhaps comforting. Surely these must be two different verb conjugations in Spanish as well? I mean, you'd have to be able to differentiate "God is listening, so stop your blaspheming, you hellbound sinner!" from "Cheer up, good fellow -- God cares about your problems!"

Ironically, after parsing "Dios Eschucha" reasonably well, I got to my hotel room and discovered that I had a desk but no chair. I flagged down a hotel maid who spoke no English, and I could not, for anything, recall the Spanish word for "chair." Both of us smiling encouragingly at each other, I invited her into the room and pointed towards the desk. Still no dice; if you are not checking for chairs, a chairless desk doesn't necessarily look like a problem. So I went to the desk and, um ... mimed sitting down. She laughed and got me a chair.

a narwhal is "el unicornio de mar"

While German is the hands-down winner for having a single word for something that English does not have a single word for (Weltschmertz!), I kind of like that Spanish has a word for "the only thing" (el único), as the use of "thing" in English adds imprecision where it need not exist.

"Lo único que se debe hacer" is more concise than "The only thing you have to do." Why do we need a thing in there? Ideally, "thing" should be reserved for unidentified objects.

The use of "thing" in this case is, I think, an imperfection in English similar to the necessary use of an antedecentless pronoun in "It's raining." We can't say "The children enjoy lollipops, but it's not happening today," because there's no singular noun that could be the "it." But in "It's raining," the "it" just can't be helped. That's a lack of intelligent design.

Incidentally, the Spanish word for "unicorn" is "el unicornio," which sounds a little bit dirty.

sounds more like a Trojans ad, if you ask me

The Department of Health has put up these posters around town that picture three young pregnant women, one black, one white, and one Hispanic, under the headline "Pregnant?" If so, one is urged to obtain prenatal care by calling some phone number.

The Spanish version of this poster in my neighborhood says "Embarazada?"

This is unsurprising, as it is the Spanish word for "pregnant," but every time I pass the poster what I see is some knocked-up teenagers standing under the word "Embarassed?"

hey mami, you sexy

I just saw a baby-tee for sale in East Harlem that said "Dame más gasolina, papi!"

This is a reference to the popular Latin hit, "Gasolina" (lyrics in Spanish). Like that song about my milkshake being better than yours (in which the "milkshake," I eventually learned, refers to the jiggling of breasts), "gasoline" turns out to be an oblique reference to a substance that bears very little relation to gasoline, except perhaps for the part about "pumping." (Other than that, one does not buy it by the gallon, it is not heavily taxed nor highly flammable, and we import very little of it from the Middle East, seeing as how we have an abundant natural supply).

Who the hell lets their daughter out of the house in a "give me more come" t-shirt?

Example Phrase Using Today's Word: Se debe usar el ascensor o las escaleras automáticas.

I recently discovered that "escalator" is plural in Spanish. Makes perfect sense. I mean, if "escalator" is singular in English, why are stairs plural?

I can see the argument for plurality (pluralism? both of these words have totally other and unintended meanings here) or singularity (singularism?), but it seems like a language should really pick one for both stairs and escalators and stick with it.

salad tossers of Latin America, unite!

I get a Spanish word of the day in my email, and today's word was "cosa," or "thing." I found the example sentence rather humorous, however:

Spanish: Vale, estamos de acuerdo en una cosa... la ensalada.

English: OK, we agree on one thing-- tossed salad.

Sure, this would make perfect sense if two people were planning a dinner party, but I like to imagine just throwing it out in any argument:

"Only under communism will the working class truly be free!"

"OK, we agree on one thing-- tossed salad."

Unfortunately, "la ensalada" isn't inherently funny, whereas the phrase "tossed salad" somehow is.

un army de uno

There appears to be a sort of Mexican-Day festival going on on my block right now. There's a live band on a stage, and a Mexican-flag stand literally right next to my front door. As always, there's an Army recruiting station.

I always find it funny when slogans get translated differently -- in McD's the other day, I saw a dual-language sign that said "100% Taste!" in English, but in Spanish it said something like ¡Prueba nuestro sabor incomparable! Maybe that "hundred-percent" thing just isn't tossed around so casually in other languages. I wonder if you could walk into a classroom in, say, Malaysia, and ask people to give you "110%" and they'd either look at you like you couldn't do math, or else consider it a completely novel motivational phrase.

So, the Army's slogan "An Army of One" is translated into Spanish simply as "Yo soy el Army." Now, obviously "an army of one" is made up of four simple words that certainly exist in Spanish; however, together, they must just not make any sense, at least according to advertising executives.