Joking apart

Every language and country has its sayings – refranes or  proverbs – proverbios and Spanish not only does the favour of translating proverbial as proverbial but provides consabido, too.

There’s nothing like proverbs for catching a glimpse of how people view or face up to trouble and it’s fascinating to see how Spanish and English-speakers say the same thing in different ways.



Riada



Llover sobre mojado means pretty much the same as it never rains but it pours, although gloomy recognition that problems never arrive singly is more often conveyed with a perro flaco todo son pulgas.  

There is something infinitely more resigned about a skinny dog is all fleas than the prospect of a great deal of rain – not that rain is troublefree in a country as susceptible to flash flooding – una riada as drought – sequía.

Sequía

Del agua mansa me libre Dios, que de la brava me guardaré yo is supposed to correspond to still waters run deep although its literal translation of God protect me from calm water and I’ll protect myself from the rough resembles our God protect me from my friends and I’ll protect myself from my enemies.

But éramos pocos y parió la abuela as well as si no te gusta el caldo, dos tazas and monta un circo y le crecen los enanos are supremely Spanish and supremely revealing.   

The first explains the Spanish sense of the ridiculous, the second illustrates the Spanish tendency to expect the worst and the third demonstrates Spanish acceptance that the worst will happen.

The literal translation of éramos pocos y parió la abuela is there weren’t many of us and Grandma gave birth.  This is a variation on the straw that broke the camel’s back but the joke is that the phrase means precisely the opposite to what it says.  Without enough room to swing a cat, Grandma – not supposed to be of childbearing age – complicates things by adding another occupant. 

Si no te gusta el caldo, dos tazas means if you don’t like soup, you get two bowls and implies that aversion to something dooms you to having it shoved down your throat.  The more modern and defiantly politically incorrect monta un circo y le crecen los enanos conjures up someone who has such bad luck that if he had a circus, the dwarfs would grow.

These are prime examples of the Spanish irony - ironía which is not always present in Spanish humour.  Nation shall speak unto nation by learning a foreign language but the joke that nation tells unto nation is often harder to understand.

Understanding the punch line of a Spanish joke – un chiste español entails more than vocabulary and does not guarantee that you will split your sides with laughter. 

Although a una comedia is now regarded as a comedy, originally it was no laughing matter and meant any kind of play, not specifically a funny one. Un comediante was an actor and describing someone as un comediante or una comedianta still implies that he or she is a hypocrite.  Onstage a comedian was and is un cómico although a printed comic is un tebeo.

Joke-y verbs are bromear and gastar una broma when playing a joke or saying joking apart – bromas aparte.  But to tell one is contar un chiste and not the tempting chistar, which means means to draw attention to, usually with the psst that a Spanish-speaker hears as chssss.

Lo hice sin chistar means I did it without saying a word, so the implication is not that I did it silently but did it without complaining., all of which confirms that there’s nothing very funny about chistar (or many a chiste español for that matter).