No-one is ever going to persuade me that a cock goes quiquiriqui or kikiriki, no matter what its nationality. After years of beratement (yes, I know this word doesn’t exist but I feel it should) from my students, however, I am prepared to admit that cock-a-doodle-doo is also pushing it a bit. Perhaps the Japanese [...]
Animals ’speak’ different languages. An English dog responds to “Sit!” a Catalan dog to “¡Seu!” and a Spanish dog to the long-winded “¡Siéntate!” Of course, what they are responding to (or not, as the case may be) is the tone, not the word. My cats don’t care what I call them as long as I [...]
Every other bloke in Andalucía is called Paco. In our village there’s a whole slew of them: Paco el panadero (Paco the bread van man), Paco del bar (Paco of the bar), Paco mechero (lighter Paco – a cheerful chap in his 50s with a mental age of seven who has a thing about lighters [...]
The day after the TV show, when loads of you visited us and left comments, our website crashed due to circunstancias ajenas a nuestra voluntad, and all the new comments vanished into cyberspace. We’re really really sorry. We’ve managed to retrieve them from our mailbox and here they are. Thanks!!!
From Paquita
Tienes más peligro que [...]
The Spanish are hugely fond of metaphorically defecating in and on all kinds of unsuitable surfaces and recipients. The least alarming is the sea. Me cago en la mar, I shit in the sea. Or for those of more gentile disposition, me cachis en la mar, or even just me cachis …. I euphemistically shit [...]
