Pendiente Ascendiente
 

People,

I was watching a TV show about driving, and the lady said "pendiente ascendiente". Isn't that a lot of sylables? Is there a simpler way to say it? In a driving situation, could I say "cuesta arriba"?

And how about downhill? Pendiente abajo? Cuesta abajo?

In English we use the word "slope" a lot.

Silopanna/Dean

Note that cuesta arriba is an adverb, while cuesta ascendiente or pendiente ascendiente is a noun modified by an adjective. The adverb means 'uphill'. The noun+adjective pair means 'upward slope'. These aren't interchangeable, since they're different parts of speech.
(Another way to say the noun 'slope' is inclinación.)
(The noun 'pendiente' has other meanings, like the slope you see in a graph and an earring.)

A downward slope (noun+adjective) is cuesta descendiente (or inclinación hacia abajo).
The adverb 'downhill' is cuesta abajo.

As far as I know, pendiente ascendiente means downward upward. Una cuesta pendiente is a downward slope, and cuesta ascendiente is an upward slope.

I agree with Rusty.


@Poli: "Pendiente" is any slope, either going upward or downward; that is why the speaker had to make clear they were going up. In math, you also have to say whether it is a "pendiente positiva" ( / ) or a "pendiente negativa" ( \ ) :)

I got my info from RAE which defines pendiente as inclinado en declive. I understand that peninsular Spanish is not always the same as the Spanish of the Americas.

Poli and Angelica,

In spite of the RAE source of information - just to get a little more contradictory here - the show that I was watching was on TVE from Spain, the speaker was a Spaniard, and I even saw what she said on the screen because I had the legends activated.

So it seems that the way they speak it in Spain would be as Angelica says.

But why does RAE say that?

Dean

You're right. The definition of "pendiente" in the DRAE you're referring to says: "Inclinado, en declive". But notice that both terms are together in the same line, so they forcibly mean the same. :)
Also, the definition of "declive" simply states that something has an inclination. In general, "cuesta", "declive", "pendiente" and "inclinación" are synonymous, but it is a fact that most of the time, people use "declive" and "en declive" as implying that something goes downward or is decreasing. Personally, I think this is just the usage getting ahead of the RAE again. ;)

Language is always a moving target. Constant change is the only thing we can count on. :)

Agreed 100%, David. Languages evolve all the time, as every living being. :D

Another wrinkle: I remembered to ask a Colombian friend what pendiente meant. He said, among other things, a hill. I asked it mattered if it were an upward or downward slope. He answered that it meant downward slope and laughed at me for imagining that it could mean an ascending slope. Regionalisms need to be considered.