Thursday, March 01, 2007
More Than Just a Name
I read the funniest thing today. It made me laugh harder than I've laughed in a really long time. We had gone to get the safety and emissions inspection on the truck so I was killing time by reading a magazine. The article was all about how Plano was founded. Then the article goes on to explain how it was named. Plano used to be mostly plains and area for raising cattle etc... So, apparently, in the mid 1800's the first medical doctor in the area thought that plano was the spanish word for plain. So he started calling the city that and it stuck. What a legacy for a city to have and just like an ignorant person to through an -o on the end of an English word and think they now are speaking Spanish.
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8 comments:
I believe that is what they call "Spanglish" I love it!
That's funny about the 'O' endings but the opposite also happens. Dad told me that when he was a young boy newly arrived in the States he worked hard at learning English by watching the the weathercasts because they reuse so many of the same terms. But one thing that really cracked him up was his own determination to sound knowledgeable. The Spanish word for broom is escoba. So he thought the English word would be the same only without the 'A' ending....he called it an 'escob'! I guess that would be spanglish in reverse.
The raino in Spaino stays mainly in the Plano...
From My Fair Lady, in case you were wondering.
We did that in German, too. Only in German, if we didn't know a verb in German we would just say the English verb and add an "-en" to it.
You might be curious to know that the Spanish word for plane is plano.
Plano also means flat. Perhaps in the 1800s before the ubiquitous use of dictionaries, the words plain and plane were interchangeable.
I think this is a misunderstanding of homonyms (AKA homonymophobia) not necessarily a case of Spanglishification. If he meant the city was a plane, meaning a tool used in woodworking to remove layers of wood or a large flat thing, t'would be the correct translation simply by Spanglifying the word.
The reason this simple translation principle works so often, and I am sure you care, is because many English words are derivatives of Latin (the other majority being Germanic based). With Spanish being a Latinate language, many words from both our languages descend from the same Latin origin. In this case the Latin word is planus, which gives English both the word plane and plain; the Spanish got plano and llano.
In conclusion: you are being too hard on the guy, because technically he was right.
[From the Notre Dame Latin dictionary]
planus -a -um [even , flat]; n. as subst. [a plain, level ground]; 'de plano', [offhand, easily]. Transf. [plain, clear, intelligible]. Adv. plane, [distinctly, intelligibly; wholly, quite, thoroughly]; in answers, [certainly].
Wow I feel smarter now. El smarto.
Spanish word for "plane" is not "plano". It is "avion" or "aeroplano".
The fact that the guy who named the city just happened to be correct is inconsequential; the real joy is knowing how people are so clumsy with their translation of English to Spanish (and vice versa).
One recent example: My coworker (diligently practicing his Spanish) asked me if last week if I was bringing my "pene" to a meeting (he was trying to say "pen," which, for the record, would be "boligrafo"). "Pene" by the way, is the Spanish word for that certain part of the male anatomy. Needless to say, it's not really what he meant to ask me. Regardless, I brought both to the meeting.
Dear anonymouso,
I might not be as coolo as you, but think I know the difference between plano and aeroplano. Since you dont, get out your pene and take some notes:
Plane (plano):
-noun
1. a flat or level surface.
2. Geometry. a surface generated by a straight line moving at a constant velocity with respect to a fixed point.
3. Fine Arts. an area of a two-dimensional surface having determinate extension and spatial direction or position: oblique plane; horizontal plane.
4. a level of dignity, character, existence, development, or the like: a high moral plane.
Airplane (avion):
-noun
1. a heavier-than-air aircraft kept aloft by the upward thrust exerted by the passing air on its fixed wings and driven by propellers, jet propulsion, etc.
I guess we could go into a discussion about the bernoulli effect, newtons laws and fluid mechanics... but pinche me if I am getting off topic. Wasn't this post about accidentally saying Spanish cuss words?
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