That the Spanish language has been destroyed by its journalists and speakers has been obvious for decades now, and the damage is always increasing. Too many Latin Americans have joined him: the cliché reigned to affirm that his Castilian Spanish was much superior, with more vocabulary, more correct and eloquent than that of our country. This may have been the case in the past, not anymore. They have embraced the Anglicisms of the United States so uncritically and with such fervor that today they speak and write a kind of literal translation of English. The subtitles of the movies and series translated by them are a good example of that lazy or ignorant tracing. In Spain, of course, people continue to speak and write worse and worse, and here also the Anglicisms have colonized us without opposition. There are thousands of examples, but I am struck by a recent one that I have seen employing even prestigious writers: now everything “exudes”, figuratively. A film “exudes spirit”, a novel “exudes irony”, and so on ad infinitum. It is not difficult to deduce that this verb is related to “sweat”, and, as far as I know, the only things that can be said to “exude” are bodies and cheeses and the like. More suitable and not so smelly words have been forgotten, such as “distill”, “ooze”, “overflow” or “detach”, as the case may be.
Another gibberish is that of set phrases. I recently heard from a journalist from TVE (a great factory of language attacks) that the president of Barça “was reeling off the daisy” of whether or not to fire the coach. As far as I know, daisies do not have grains, but leaves or petals, and the expression has always been “remove the daisy.” Not long ago even the most ignorant of the place knew her.
But, beyond the destruction, I observe the insistent attempts to expel the Castilian, and I am not referring to the territories whose authorities apply boldly to it (Catalonia, the Basque Country, the Balearic Islands and Valencia), but to the rest of the country , which in principle does not have more than that language. First came the store signs and fixed advertisements: “vintage”, “bargain”(For“ bargain ”),“sold out“, For” sold “or” sold out “or” no tickets left “), and endless etcetera. This trial of resorting to English terms because those who use them believe that they sound cosmopolitan and better, has also reached the oral, which already has the merit of the incomprehensible. It is very difficult for most of our population to learn languages (as, moreover, almost all populations: the exception would be the Nordic and the Balkan), as well as their pronunciation. There is even more difficulty in understand. However, many spots televisions are no longer in Spanish, but in English. Some appear absurdly subtitled, to help understanding (wouldn’t it be more logical if they were directly in Spanish?), Others not even, and others fall into the tacky maxim, like one of breakfasts and snacks that you cannot resist finishing. with the following idiocy: “Are you ready? ” Who knows what prevents them from saying “Are you ready?” The mix is small-town, if not pathetic.
Foreign and national products, cheap and elegant brands (fine fashion houses), car and sausage brands, expensive perfumes and fabadas are involved in this practice, they all sign up without distinction. Often times the viewer will not understand what is being said to him or perhaps what is being sold to him. But since the goal of every advertiser is to sell more, it must be inferred that perhaps the pedantic-cateta trend is successful. In this case, what happens to our country with its language, why does it see it so inferior to the English of America (it is never that of Great Britain), what strange complex has been installed in our society? Perhaps it is cultural, and, given the Education plans in the Burricie of the socialist and popular governments, it is quite possible that a high number of Spaniards today do not know Cervantes, Lope, Quevedo, Clarín, Larra, Baroja, Machado, Pardo Bazán, Valle-Inclán and Lorca, not to mention contemporaries. But I think it is more about the irrepressible desire to be Americans and to live as such (something that is difficult to accept given the stupid country they have turned theirs into in this century). They have exported everything to us through their films and series: from their cartoonish obsession with the misnamed “genre” to their crude bachelor parties and Halloween, from the excessive love of dogs to the little speeches at weddings and that of brides take “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”, Whose Spanish version doesn’t even rhyme. I haven’t seen group soccer games in a long time, but I imagine a lot of homeland football fans will now watch them between beer burps (from Budweiser) and huge popcorn cones. To satisfy this longing, Spanish is a great nuisance. Don’t worry: advertising, a school of lelos and corny since 1960, another notch could be added: that of boycotting the language, without offering for it a replacement or substitution.
Sign in to continue reading
Just by having an account you can read this article, it’s free
Thanks for reading EL PAÍS