Spanish Word of the Day

Quote: petroglyph

I do not have a FB account, and the pictures although not HQ, show well.

Given that the pictures can be seen, they are of the Familia Sagrada, a building that has been under construction since the 1960's and still about eight years away. Play close attention to array of numbers. Can anyone figure out the significance?

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, two 10s, one 11, zero 12s, one 13, two 14s, one 15, zero 16s for a total of sixteen squares.

There is no direct quote in the bible as to the age of Jesus on his death.

Quote: Pacomartin

There is no direct quote in the bible as to the age of Jesus on his death.

Fecha: 22 de Marzo, 2018
Palabra: Airar

Today's SWD means to anger. I can't think of any words that may share the same etymology in English or Spanish.

The assignment for the advanced readers is to compare and contrast airar y enojar.

Ejemplo time.

El capitan era airado despues Gilligan debio caer una piedra en el dedo di pie. = The Skipper became angry after Gilligan dropped a rock on his toe.

Funny that Spanish doesn't have a direct word for "drop."
Also, I'll just say in advance that any Spanish book will say that body parts are never possessive.

Quote: Wizard

Funny that Spanish doesn't have a direct word for "drop."

"To Drop" is derived from "Old Norse". There are a lot of English words that come from Old Norse, or Old English that don't have direct equivalents in Latin, so they don't have direct equivalents in Spanish or any other Romance language. The etymology direction says the original meaning of "drop" was in drops of rain, but it quickly took on the meaning in the 14th century to let an object fall to the ground.

"Anger" is also Old Norse "angra" and it's German cognate "angst".

Quote: Wizard

The assignment for the advanced readers is to compare and contrast airar y enojar.

"airar" is from Latin īra from which the English words "irritate" and "ire" are descended.
"enojar" is from Latin odiō from which the English words "odious" is descended.

So in translating both words we appeal to the English verb "to anger" which has an etymologically distinct background.

Nareed will have to explain how the words are used in common speech, but I was always told "enojar" is the word most often used.

If you google "enojar" you will get a lot of images that you expect.


If you google "airar" you will get a lot of obscure images.

The google test is a quick way to see how common a word is.

Quote: Pacomartin

Nareed will have to explain how the words are used in common speech, but I was always told "enojar" is the word most often used.

Nareed is tired of having her expertise dismissed in favor of translations with terrible standards.


But I'll re-translate the example because it's f***g hilarious:

"El capitan era airado despues Gilligan debio caer una piedra en el dedo di pie"

"The captain used to be angered after Gilligan must have fall a stone on the finger say foot."

Quote: Nareed

"The captain used to be angered after Gilligan must have fall a stone on the finger say foot."

With that as a last word, I'm signing the death certificate on this thread.

I may start up a new thread about languages in general where hopefully people won't be made to feel stupid.

"airar" is from Latin īra from which the English words "irritate" and "ire" are descended.
"enojar" is from Latin odiō from which the English words "odious" is descended.

The Oxford Spanish-English dictionary says
airar is a verb meaning "to anger"
enojar is a verb meaning "to make … angry" as a transitive verb or "to get angry" as a pronomial verb in Latin America

Quote: Nareed

Nareed is tired of having her expertise dismissed.

But I don't get a single image of angry people when I google the word "airar".

Unless you hear Spanish all the time there is no way to know which word is commonly used.

In Spanish-speaking countries, when kids play hide and seek or Marco Polo, and need to count to ten, what do they say between to the numbers, to ensure they don't count too fast, in the same way we Americans say "Mississippi"?

Quote: Wizard

In Spanish-speaking countries, when kids play hide and seek or Marco Polo, and need to count to ten, what do they say between to the numbers, to ensure they don't count too fast, in the same way we Americans say "Mississippi"?

I think some adults use "Mississippi counting" for other things like estimating the spacing between automobiles.

Germans say 21 (undzwanzig) to slow down their counting as in "einundzwanzig, zweiundzwanzig, dreiundzwanzig,..."

Italians say "Mille e uno , Mille e due, Mille e tre, ..." which is equivalent to "one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four..."

I think Spanish kids say "Mil uno, mil dos, mil tres, mil cuatro.."


Of course, the big question is how do you say "olly olly oxen free" in Spanish.