Thursday, July 5, 2007

On hiatus

To those of you panting for torrid accounts of my torrid adventures in torrid Madrid, I must apologize for the gap between transmissions. Regular blogging will resume next week.

flirtatious natasha

baleful boris

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Three odd words

Here are examples of some Spanish words I find odd or noteworthy:

  • liderazgo : leadership (with the kind of etymology that presumably gives members of the RAE, the Real Academia Española, the fantods, deriving as it does from the Spanglish "líder").
  • esdrújulo/a : bearing the stress on the antepenultimate syllable (example - "esdrújula"); what surprises me about this word is its very existence.
  • celestina : a procuress, or madam. Such a mellifluous word deserves a less shabby meaning.

Famous depictions of la celestina in art include those by Picasso and Sorolla (see Friday's post):