PEDRO ÁLVAREZ DE MIRANDA

I am sorry to inform my American friends that this guy Pedro Álvarez de Miranda has been elected to the Real Academia Española, on the sole merit of having written one book, up to 2006. One, only one: Palabras e ideas: el léxico de la ilustración temprana en España (1680-1760) and published by the Academia itself, where he was working as a printer's devil or something of the sort.
Have you ever heard of a painter who cannot produce a single painting to show his art? Here we have a wordsmith who's never composed a dictionary and yet he is considered a lexicographer.
You have guessed right: I own it I have a bone to pick with this servile sycophant, this flunky, this fawner.

Dr. John Simpson - Editor-in-Chief, OED.

FOREWORD

By John Simpson
University of Oxford

My introduction to Spanish proverbs occurred when I was working on the letter A for the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs. The earliest piece of evidence I had for the proverb It takes all sorts to make a world came from Thomas Shelton’s seventeenth-century English translation of Don Quixote: ‘In the world there must bee of all sorts’. I think the information has stuck with me all these years because I wasn’t expecting the first reference to an English proverb to come from a Spanish source. I’m not sure why I wasn’t expecting this: after all, English (at least since the Norman Conquest) shares much of its proverb heritage with the countries of continental Europe. But following the trail of many words, I imagined that we would find early references to English proverbs in Latin, or in French, rather than in Spanish.

But this European heritage of proverbs is strong. Many exist in parallel in a number of European languages, as the records of these languages show. Proverbs often arise as a response to the trials and tribulations of human existence, and the European experience meant that a proverb that was relevant to Spaniards, or to the French, may well be equally relevant to the English. It took me several years more to realize that proverbs often arise from adversity. They are often a traditional, stoic response to something that has gone wrong. ‘Oh well, don’t worry: it takes all sorts to make a world’. Not always, but often enough for the proverb to have a significant role in consolation.

Delfin Carbonell’s careful review of the modern proverb in Spanish and English investigates the history of our proverbs, and elucidates their meaning (which is not always as clear-cut as one might expect). Proverbs date from the earliest documentary records and have survived right up to the present-day. They still have a function in contemporary society (how often do they crop up in newspaper headings or in chapter titles, for example?). They connect us with our past, with the thoughts and emotions that our predecessors experienced in situations curiously similar to ours today. And Dr Carbonell is right to draw our attention to the need to work from primary source material. There is a bad old tradition in dictionary writing whereby proverbs are handed down from lexicographer (dictionary-writer) to lexicographer, and this dictionary record can in some cases outlive the existence of the proverb itself in actual speech. By concentrating on living testimony to the proverb (whether in modern books or newspapers, or even on the Internet), today’s editor can highlight those proverbs which are really current today, and can screen out (because of lack of evidence) those proverbs which have drifted out of use and into obsolescence. This necessity to cite real, contextual examples underpins all proper scholarly work in lexicography, and informs sound popular texts based on these. Readers often do dictionary-makers the honour of believing what they write, and so it behoves the dictionary-writer to get things right in the first place.

I shall be interested to see what success the present editor has with his unialphabetical system. As far as I am aware, it is an innovation in bilingual paroemiology (as pedants call proverb study). Any system which forces information on us in a new way is worthy of consideration. Advances in knowledge come from breaking the traditional bounds, and seeing links where they have not been recognized before.

John Simpson
Oxford
April 2004

Unialphabet – Sample Entries

THE NEW DICTIONARY OF CURRENT SAYINGS AND PROVERBS, SPANISH AND ENGLISH

with citations from all English-speaking countries

APPLE

An apple a day keeps the doctor away – una manzana al día de(l) médico te ahorraría.

— “A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play: The sing-song slogan, so similar to an apple a day keeps the doctor away, was discarded by Mars after 40 years...” Independent, Aug 2, 2004. UK. || “Routine chores: I view using Defrag on a Windows machine as the computer world's equivalent of an apple a day to keep the doctor away.” Palm Beach Daily News, FL, Aug 2, 2004. US. || “She also wrote that while eating an apple a day might keep the doctor away, eating an onion a day would probably keep everybody away.” The Southern Illinoisan, IL, Jul 29, 2004. US. [a Dicho muy popular en inglés que tiene un poso de verdad ya que la manzana es una fruta muy saludable. La equivalencia castellana que ofrezco aparece en varios refraneros pero es, como se ve en MANZANA, traducción del inglés. La coletilla añadida al refrán por el Southern Illinosian es de Graffitti: Two Thousand Years of Wall Writing, 1971.]

The rotten apple injures its neighbors – la manzana podrida pierde (pudre) a su compañía.

— “But one bad apple can spoil the whole barrel.” D. McKenzie, Raven Feathers his Nest, 1979. UK. || “We do have blighted properties in a given block -- and blight, like a rotten apple in a basket, can spread. You've got to nip it in the bud.” CNI Newspapers, WI, 16 Jan 2004. US. || “School. Many students choose to excel in academics or sports. A few rotten apples do not always spoil the whole bunch.” Henderson Daily Dispatch, NC, May 24 2004. US. [a De origen latino: “pomum compuctum cito corrumpit sibi junctum.” Existe cita de 1340. Su uso ha decaído aunque existen variantes, como la de la segunta citación que se aporta.]

APRENDER

Nunca es tarde para aprender – never too old to learn.

— “¿El magisterio? No es que me vea dando clases a niños dentro de unos años, pero creo que nunca es tarde para aprender.” El Correo Digital (Álava), 13/12/2003. Esp. || “El disco tiene su música como banda de sonido, es más orgánico. Nunca es tarde para aprender.” El Tiempo, 14/8/2004. Colom. || “Nunca es tarde para aprender, puede ser el lema del mexicano Juan José Ortiz Montuy, quien a sus 86 años obtuvo una maestría en Ciencia Política...” La Nación, 15/8/2004. Venzl. || “... de su edad, sabe ya que con voluntad, decisión y dedicación, es posible retardar la natural involución del cerebro, que nunca es tarde para aprender y que...” Revista Cambio, 1/8/2004. Esp. [a Séneca, Epistolae LXXVI “tamdiu discendum est, quandiu nescias: si proverbio credimus, quandiu vivas...” Older people are always whining about their incapacity to learn. It’s probably a question of laziness more than age.]

► LORO Loro viejo no aprende a hablar

APRENDIZ

Aprendiz de todo, maestro (profesional) de nada – Jack of all trades, master of none.

— “Trata en lo personal, sin esforzarse demasiado, de mejorar al leerse la imagen interior que tiene de sí. Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada, no se empeña en buscar giros ampulosos y alambicados.” Augusto Roa Bastos, Vigilia del Almirante, 1992. Para. || “No es admisible un superfedatario omnipresente, conocedor de todo y maestro de nada.” El Mundo, 22/11/1994. Esp. || “El reportero es un aprendiz de todo y un maestro de nada.” El Mundo, 15/3/1996. Esp. || “Raphael es un aprendiz de todo y profesional de nada, siempre que se me ve he logrado ser un poco mejor que la ocasión anterior...” La Prensa, 5/6/2004. Nicar. [a Those who try to learn many trades end up being masters of none.]

APRETAR

► ABARCAR Quien mucho abarca, poco aprieta

APRIL

April showers bring forth May flowers – marzo ventoso y abril lluvioso traen a mayo florido y hermoso.

— “April showers may or may not have brought May flowers. In case they haven't, why not plant a few yourself?” Cleveland Plain Dealer, OH, 9 Jan 2004. US. || “... stop raining? Who can care that April showers bring May flowers, that there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?” Washington Post, DC, 2 Jan 2004. US. [a Una variante es “April showers bring May flowers”, ya desde 1560 y que sigue muy vigente en la actualidad. Existe en varios idiomas europeos. Tras la adversidad viene la buena fortuna, las flores y el buen tiempo.]

Unialphabet

I have created a Unialphabet system of classification for bilingual wordbooks, which blends both language together (in my case English and Spanish) into one single body of facts rather than employing the traditional two-part method. I believe this has several advantages over the old system: The user can go straight to the word, not minding whether he is in the English or the Spanish part, making it easier to check words or expressions in either language. This can be seen in my A Spanish and English Dictionary of Idioms and in my The New Dictionary of Current Sayings and proverbs, Spanish and English, both published by Ediciones del Serbal, Barcelona.

Vila-Matas, Joyce and Dublin.

Ana Tarrat was telling me about her trip to Dublin over the Easter holiday and per usual one thing led to another and I mentioned Enrique Vila-Matas's new novel Dublinesca, about this publisher who visits the capital of Ireland to pay some sort of a tribute to James Joyce... and here's the rub: she had never heard of James Joyce or his novel. That raised some red flags in my tiny brain. A college educated Spaniard didn't know about one of the most popular books of the 20th century. So I also asked Antonio Raimondo who confirmed that the author of Ulysses was also unknown to him. And I asked many more... and the result was the same. I bring this up because I find it so shocking... Such discoveries make me falter. Also, does Vila-Matas speak English that well to plunge into Ulysses and Dublin and the leprechaun culture? I guess he does.

Víctor García de la Concha - RAE Satrap.

Mockingly I have been saying for years to all and sundry, to all poor devils within earshot, that I am naïve. But now, at this stage of the game, my game, I have come to realize the real extent of my naïveté: I vied for the Real Academia Española Prize for a philological research book TWICE, not once, but TWICE!
No small feat: I had to convince three members of the Academia to back me up, to ratify my work.
And here is where my naïveté comes in: Why on damnation did I ever think I would get the Prize? Knowing the director, Víctor García de la Concha -who had to award the prize- a true dictator who runs the Academy as Chaves runs his country, why on earth did I ever consider making a fool of myself?
The 2009 Prize has been awarded to a Nicaraguan. That is fine and dandy. But, and get a load of this, it has NOT been announced in Spain yet, almost 5 months later! No announcement, no press release, no posts on the Webpage. Mum's the word.
I guess that García de la Concha and his clique, his henchmen, feel embarrassed about their wheeling and dealing.
Sour grapes, you think? Who knows.

FRANCISCO PÉREZ GANDUL - CELDA 211

Spain is still a country ruled over by cliques which smother all chances of true expression and relevance. This may sound hard but that's the way things stand and to think otherwise would be nothing but wishful thinking.
Francisco Pérez Gandul wrote a novel, Celda 211, a few years ago and after many rejections he found a publisher. Reviews were tepid, lukewarm, but his faith in it lead him to try to have it made into a movie.
And the other day, against all odds, the film -Celda 211- won 8 Goyas, the equivalent of US Oscars, and was cheered and applauded by all as the best film of the year, in a hall packed with actors, directors, politicians... but my friend, the author, Francisco Pérez Gandul was not there. He was in Seville, at home, watching the show on TV. He had not been invited to attend.

Pittsburgh, Presidents and Languages

Two Presidents: Obama -I admire- and Zapatero -from Spain, I despise- have visited Pittsburgh, Pa. these last few days, and neither -just my luck- speak languages. I mention this because Pittsburgh homes my Alma Mater, Duquesne University, and the University of Pittsburgh, where I was taught English, Spanish anbd French, among other things. What a travesty of an international meeting!

In the XIX Century educated people spoke languages as a matter of course. Peruse Mann's Death in Venice where at the hotel von Aschenbach hears all the educated European languages.
Today more than ever the mastery of languages is a must, as I have written in my El laberinto del idioma inglés, which I recommend, of course.
And while we are at it, I also recommend Duquesne University and the University of Pittsburgh, to all those who wish to pursue a serious - a no-nonsense- education.

El idioma inglés y su laberinto

I put together and published El laberinto del idioma inglés, hoja de ruta as an answer and guide to and for Spaniards seeking to learn the English language.
If you happen to be a Spaniard studying English, may I recommend this book that will help you in your quest? In it you will find a lot of practical advice that will answer many of your questions about language learning in general. You will read: 1, Learning and mastering a foreign language IS possible. 2. Spaniards are not linguistically handicapped. 3. It's impossible to pick up a language in ten days. 4. A lot of hard work is needed. 5. Grammar and study are the easiest and fastest way to learn. 6. Beware of language quacks and charlatans. 7. Languages pave the way to culture, and perhaps jobs.
Read it and you will learn a few things about languages and it will save you time and effort.

http://www.ed-serbal.es/

In Ediciones del Serbal (http://www.ed-serbal.es/ and http://www.ed-serbal.es/listado.asp?familia=Diccionarios&idfamilia=62) you'll find information about most of my books, along with reviews, interviews and even videos. Check their web page whenever you have a minute to spare. Thank you.

Contact:

By the way, my address is: delfincarbonellatyahoo.com, just in case. (Of course, change the "at" to @, naturally).

Latest photograph

Picture taken last August in Alicante, Spain.

My Bibliography / Mi bibliografía

Important publications / Publicaciones importantes: Books/libros

· La novelística de J. A. de Zunzunegui (Dos Continentes)
· Edition of Los amantes de Teruel de Hartzenbusch (Anaya)
· Diccionario malsonante, inglés y castellano (Istmo, 1992)
· A Phraseological Dictionary, English and Spanish (Ediciones del Serbal, 1995)
· Dictionary of Proverbs, English and Spanish, (Ediciones del Serbal, 1996 and Barron’s Educational Series, 1998, N.Y. Special Award for Bilingual Lexicography, Universidad de Extremadura, Spain)
· A Spanish and English Dictionary of Slang And Unconventional Language, with a foreword by Camilo José Cela (Ediciones del Serbal, 1997)
· Gran diccionario de argot. Foreword by Luis María Anson, Spanish Royal Academy. (Larousse, 2000; McGraw-Hill, Chicago, November, 2002.)
· Diccionario panhispánico de refranes de autoridades, with a foreword by Alonso Zamora Vicente, Spanish Royal Academy, (Editorial Herder, November, 2002.)
· English in Action. First Year. English for Spanish speakers. (Serbal, Oct. 2002)
· English in Action. Second Year. English for Spanish speakers. (Serbal,Oct. 2002)
· English in Action. Third Year. English for Spanish speakers. (Serbal, Oct. 2002)
· English in Action. Fourth Year. English for Spanish speakers. (Serbal, Oct. 2003)
· A Shorter Colloquial Dictionary English and Spanish, Foreword by Hugh Rawson. (Serbal, Jan.2004)
· A Spanish and English Dictionary of Idioms, Foreword by Edward Gates (Serbal, June, 2004).
· The New Dictionary of Current Sayings and Proverbs, Spanish and English, Foreword by Dr. John Simpson, Editor in Chief, Oxford English Dictionary (Serbal, 2005)
· Diccionario de clichés (Foreword by José Jiménez Lozano, Premio Cervantes 2002, Ed. del Serbal, 2006.)
· Diccionario sohez (Foreword by Luis María Anson, Serbal, 2007; 2nd. Ed. 2008)
· Diccionario panhispánico de citas, 1900-2008, (Foreword by Enrique Vila-Matas, Serbal, 2008).
· Edition of Julio Cejador’s Diccionario fraseológico del Siglo de Oro (Fraseología o estilística castellana), with Abraham Madroñal (Serbal, 2008).
· El laberinto del idioma inglés. Hoja de ruta (Foreword by Dr. James A. Parr, Serbal, 2009)

El Imparcial

For those of you who can read Spanish and are interested in what's going on in Spain and Europe, I suggest you check the new El Imparcial (www.elimparcial.es) piloted and steered by my good friend Luis María Anson, a true believer in freedom and impartiality. Let us all welcome this new line of thought which, I am sure, will help present the news in a better light than at present.
Congratulations Luis Maria Anson and José Varela Ortega.

The Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

This is NOT a book review, just random comments on The Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (secoind Edition). I chanced upon it on the Internet and checked a few writers, Spanish mostly. Cervantes was first: only one hit, "Hunger is the best sauce in the world", which happens to be a proverb and long in existence before Cervantes was born. And I ask myself: Of all Cervantes wrote -and he wrote a lot- is this the best quotation the compiler could get? No further comment.
Then I turned to Ortega y Gasset (He wrote The Revolt of the Masses, remember?) and got again only one hit: "Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia, y si no la salvo a ella no me salvo yo." And the sorry translation offered is -get a load of this!-: "I am I plus my surroundings and if I do not preserve the latter I do not preserve myself." There!
In view of this, I turned to other Spanish-speaking writers and thinkers, some of them Nobel Prize winners: Baroja, Aleixandre, García Márquez, Benavente, Azorín, Jiménez, Calderón, Lope de Vega, Galdós, Neruda, Octavio Paz, Gabriela Mistral... who are not included. But, of course, I find Groucho Marx, no less, who provides quotations from his film Duck soup without crediting the scriptwriters, the ones responsible for the funny gags and turns of phrase. Also, and per usual, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, Bernard Shaw are included.
To the average British mind Spanish-speaking writers and thinkers are of little account. Salvador de Madariaga -he taught at Oxford, and wrote in English also- is a garlic-smelling spick who should be kept off an English Dictionary of quotations. For the British Groucho Marx carries more intellectual weight, by all means.
Stereotypes die hard.

Bertrand Russell and poor me

Bertrand Russell wrote about how we all needed "some human warmth to keep away the chill of the Universe" but that we find more often than not, as he said, "the treachery of friends, the discovery of the cruelty that lurks in average human nature..." and we realize how alone we really are when the chips are down, when we must rely on the strength of our character to keep away the hurt, the pain and confront, somehow, "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" We franticaly try to plug up the holes of our inadequacies with futile make-do activities... but time slips through our fingers, and our convictions shudder...
Forgive me for this flight into my emotions. It will pass... I hope.

Edward O. Wilson.

I entered Duquesne University to pursue studies in Chemistry and Biology but I soon changed my mind. In fact, before the school year started I visited Fr. Joseph Moroney, Dean of Arts and Sciences, and changed my major and minor. The Dean tried to persuade me not to do it, but I was pigheaded. Did I do right? When reading Naturalist, by Edward O. Wilson, I enjoy it so much that it makes me wonder whether I made the wrong decision. Do read Naturalist, Wilson's autobiography, and his Journey into the Ants and Sociobiology. You will not regret it. And for a treat check this interview: video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-45154219728824809.

The Limitations of my Mind

Alas, a recent and unexpected discovery has weaken my resolution to push forward: it has suddenly dawned upon me that my mind -the workings of my brain- has deep limitations and that its scope is narrow. I have been suspecting this for long, very long, but I chose to look the other way, I chose to ignore the evidence. My brain's shortcomings are: an inability to grasp the meaning of time, the concept of beginning or end, nothingness, death and birth, the nature of happiness, the concepts of justice, love, friendship, memory... why go on? The list would be endless. And at this stage I despair of ever putting things right and learn... Too late. I have lost the sense of meaning of nearly everything. Fortunately others do not share my shortcomings...

Duquesne University

Memories are stashed away for a rainy day. Today -fancy that- it is raining in Madrid, European Union. And as I am feeling a bit under the weather ("I am not too Catholic today", is the equivalent expression in Spanish), I have winnowed old memories (to separate the chaff from the grain) mainly because I have read that Antioch College is closing down. And I was thinking how very close Pitt came to that, once upon a time, under Chancellor Litchfield (his signature is on my MA Diploma) and then, one thing leads to another, I was remembering my days, years, at Duquesne University (Spiritus est qui Vivificat), while reading Spinoza and thinking of the days that are no more, and wiping idle tears I know not what they mean... I guess that in more ways than one I am what I am because of Duquesne University. A great university indeed. I'll tell you more some other time.

At Odds with/over Language, Again.

In Levine Breaking News, June 7, 2007, I read the following:
"A broad immigration bill to legalize millions of people in the U.S. unlawfully failed a crucial test vote in the Senate Thursday..."
Le me ask:
to legalize millions of people unlawfully?
people in the US unlawfully?
the bill failed a crucial test vote unlawfully?
I'm all mixed up. Per usual.
The use of language is unpredictable and chaotic.