photo caption: Still Life, Santa Olaya, PR
On page 176 in the third volume of his epic trilogy: YOUR FACE TOMORROW - Poison, Shadow and Farewell, Javier Marias describes a phone conversation between his main character Jaime Deza, and Wheeler, the man who recruited Jaime from Madrid to work in London at a branch of MI6. Wheeler is saying, "It's quite common in Spanish to not know the actual meaning of what you're saying, far more than in English or in other languages, and yet you Spaniards come out with those phrases with such pride and aplomb: for example, what the devil does 'joder la marrana' mean? Literally. Or 'a pie juntillas' (I've noticed that some ignorant authors write 'a pies juntillas' and I don't know about now, but that used to be considered unacceptable)? Or 'a pie enjuto' or 'a dos velas' or 'caersele los anillos'? Why have an idiom about rings falling off when rings, if they do anything, end, on the contrary, to get stuck. And why do you call street blocks 'manzanas'? Apparently no one knows, I've even asked members of the Real Academia Espanola, but they just shrug unconcernedly and with not a flicker of embarassment. I mean, why 'apples'? It's absurd," Sir Peter went on. "Street blocks don't look anything like apples, even from above. Andwhy do you make that odd gesture of signifying 'a dos velas' where you place the index and middle fingers of your right hand on either side of your nose and draw them down towards your upper lip, it's very strange, I can't see any connection at all with being down to your last two candles, which is presumably what it means. You use gestures alot when you talk, but most of them make no sense at all, they're virtually opaque and often seem to have nothing to do with their meaning - that one where you rest the fingers of one hand on the upright palm of the other, do you know the one I mean, I'd demonstrate it for you if you could see me, but I never see you, you hardly ever come around now. Anyway I think it's used to indicate 'Stop, don't go on' or perhaps 'Let's go.'" Wheeler was tireless when it came to discussing linguistic matters and idioms...
What [Google] and Google Translate say: 1) 'joder la marrana' -- screw the female pig [create problems where none exist] 2) 'a pie juntillas' -- (walk + face value) blindly [accept blindly] 3) 'a pie enjuto' -- (walk + spare) on dry land [having dry shoes;
something done easily/without risk] 4) 'a dos velas' -- having two candles [snot dripping from the nose of
young children is called candles, and is a sign of poverty,
i.e. they have no one to wipe their nose. (this could explain the hand
gesture of wiping the nose with index and middle-finger, ed.)]
5) 'caersele los anillos' -- rings fall out [that request is beneath my/his dignity]
J.Galligan
75GRAND/SUR
Santa Olaya, PR