More inane language punditry from Amando de Miguel

Trevor @ Thursday August 28th 2008 19:18

From today’s post:

Manuel Gago GarcĂ­a es el jefe de la Brigada contra Anglicismos Extravagantes. Su Ăşltimo trabajo es el seguimiento del autobĂşs que llevaba a los jugadores de la selecciĂłn española (la de fĂştbol, claro) en su marcha triunfal por Madrid. Don Manuel se fijĂł en esta frase que estaba pintada en el autobĂşs como si fuera una genialidad: Impossible is nothing. El jefe de la Brigada anota que la traducciĂłn serĂ­a algo tan absurdo como “Imposible es nada”, cuando lo que se quiere decir es “Nada es imposible”.

  1. As Thomas Tsoi explains, the English is perfectly grammatical, although rather unusual.
  2. Thomas goes on to explain why phrases like “impossible is nothing” and “nothing is impossible” are not semantically equivalent in English. Amando and his correspondent, who calls himself Manuel Gago GarcĂ­a, are wrong to claim that “impossible is nothing” should be translated as nada es imposible.
  3. I suggest that Amando’s “algo tan absurdo” comment indicates that he and Manuel don’t know that posible and imposible function in Spanish as nouns as well as adjectives. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a direct translation of the phrase along the lines of El imposible no es nada.

More fatuous nonsense follows. Like many Spanish intellectuals, Amando appears to suffer an immediate attack of dyslexia when required to reproduce common foreign words. It’s Volkswagen, not Volskwagen, Herr Doktor Professor Serial Offender. I know this is only Libertad Digital, which I believe is roughly as popular as rubbish like state-financed Avui, but for Pete’s sake.

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Categories: Languages, Les bourgeois

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  1. Tom
    August 29th 2008 01:46

    I thought this guy said that Spanish was flexible (as opposed to Catalan)… surely he should be welcoming anglosajonences with open legs?

  2. Trevor
    August 29th 2008 16:24

    I think he’s lost it. I wonder if his sociology was as bad.

  3. Tom
    August 30th 2008 19:46

    Oh yeah, and Libertad Digital is far, far more popular than Avui. Bigger catchment area, innit.

  4. Trevor
    September 1st 2008 09:47

    I just took Google PageRank, where they’re both on 6. Whenever I need humbling I remind myself that I’m one point behind Avui.

  5. Tom Clarke
    September 1st 2008 10:56

    In terms of unique visitors per month, Avui has position 139 out of Spanish websites. LD is #31.

    http://ojdinteractiva.ojd.es/alfabetico.php?mes_inicio=&anio_inicio=&titulo=&url_principal=&id_categoria=&campo1=DESC&campo2=DESC&campo3=ASC&campo4=DESC&campo5=DESC&campo6=DESC&orden=uunicos

    I work for #1 :-)

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