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.

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):