mnemonics

Translating an article on Brazilian beaches, I’ve just learned a new word in Spanish:

carioca.
1. adj. Natural de Río de Janeiro. U. t. c. s.
2. adj. Perteneciente o relativo a esta ciudad del Brasil o a su provincia.

(definition from the Diccionario de la Lengua Española.)

I suppose it’s my lousy accent than makes me connect it to karaoke. It does mean, though, that I should find it relatively easy to remember carioca by picturing the Rio carnival procession all singing karaoke as they dance the samba.

Actually, that’s such a dreadful image that I hope I don’t have much call to talk about the people and activities of Rio in Spanish.

alien affairs

In today’s El Mundo there’s a report entitled Los borrosos rostros de la nueva Unión – “the vague faces of the new Union”. (It’s in the print edition, but it seems you need a subscription to read the article online.) In it, they talk about the new president of the European Union and the “superministra”, Catherine Ashton.

Oops. I nearly typed Catherine Tate.

There are two possible reasons for that slip, I think: one, going back to the Eighties when I first learned about databases with dBase II, an Ashton-Tate product; and two, the fact that the article is accompanied by a photo of a dalek.

autumn strawberries

Not all the local flora is as reminiscent of my childhood as yesterday’s plane trees. This, the madroño, (arbutus unedo), is called a strawberry tree in English, and, although it’s been introduced elsewhere as an ornamental shrub, the only part of the British Isles where it’s native is Ireland.

Not my kind of strawberry

plane speaking

I find it very strange – though in some ways, quite comforting – that one of the most popular trees in public gardens and plazas in this part of Spain is what I thought was a London plane. Perhaps even more strange is the fact that the Latin name is Platanus x hispanica. Why should a London plane be “hispanica“? Not to mention the questions arising concerning their relationship to plátanos, which is Spanish for bananas.

Pruned bananas?

tall tales

Esperanza Aguirre, the presidenta of the comunidad de Madrid who described herself as “el verso suelto dentro del poema” has come up with another quotable phrase: “Yo no hablo cuando llevo zapatos planos.” – “I won’t make a statement when I’m wearing flat shoes.”

Most women are familiar with the concept of getting dressed and putting our make-up on before making an important phone call, and I guess this is much the same thing. The problem is the psychological reasoning behind it.