Almibarado

[aleCcowaN]

Literally "syrupy", dictionaries suggest "sugary" when used figuratively.

But there are more meanings (or subtle nuances). I am looking for a suitable translation of "almibarado" when the subject is the image conveyed by an actor. I was thinking -triggered by watching the "enhanced" Matt LeBlanc in Episodes- in the ability of some actors of deconstructing their self and recreate themselves in the screen, like the case of Bob Saget fighting the almibarada image of him as the father of three in Full House showing as an "obsexed" in Entourage as if his own real self.

I found this example in CREA:

"Se necesitan maridos" [Moon over Miami, 1941], una agradable, aunque elemental comedia con bailes y canciones, no excesivamente bien coreografiados, en los que miss Grable luce sus habilidades acompañada por una Carole Landis para la que lo musical no era una especialización y, eso sí, una adorable Charlotte Greenwood. En los papeles masculinos, un insuficiente Robert Cummings y un almibarado Don Ameche en quien resulta difícil reconocer al superveterano actor de hoy mismo, "oscarizado" por "Cocoon" y de nuevo en nuestras pantallas con su por ahora última película, "Las cosas cambian", rodada a los nada menos que ochenta y dos años.

I couldn't manage to get a fragment of that film to show Ameche being almibarado, but in order to show what almibarado is I came across this contemporary movie with Grable and Ameche:



Oh, Gosh! How much celluloid wasted away!

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Mellow?

[Perikles]

After searching for synonyms for some time, I can't come up with anything better than sugary. This does convey the sense in context, I think.

[aleCcowaN]

Thank you, pals! I don't think mellow would be the word because it sounds very positive. Una sonrisa almibarada may be a stupid smile, a 'commercial' smile, an obliged smile, anything that sounds artificial: a decorative smile or a smile with adornments.

Una actuación almibarada is more like something sketchy, in primary colours, lacking that "yingyangesque" quality of everything that is human; a deliberate representation of goodness, joie de vivre, innocence or similar quality, all of it set up in an problem-free environment (more of a rol almibarado in this case).

[poli]

It seems like empalagoso to me.

Syrupy-sweet or cloying or gooey are words I would use, although I forgive the 1940's musical sentiments expressed in Fox musicals. They are far enough away from the 21st century to be a charming curiosity to me, and their gooiness just seems sweet to me. I would have selected a newer movie like "Ghost".

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

@Alec: Despite the fact that I've seen used "mellow" in a pejorative sense, it's true it can be interpreted with a positive meaning, while your "almibarado" doesn't.

@Poli: I also thought about "empalagoso"; and this "almibarado" sounds like a mixture: "empalagoso y acartonado".

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by AngelicaDeAlquezar

@Alec: Despite the fact that I've seen used "mellow" in a pejorative sense, it's true it can be interpreted with a positive meaning, while your "almibarado" doesn't.

I didn't really think that mellow was much like almibarado, to be honest, because mellow (I think) is predominantly a positive quality. In fact, I can't think of a pejorative example. It is not clear whether Mellow is derived from Greek meli= honey as is mellifluous= flowing with honey, sweetly flowing (attributed to music)

The Oxford dictionary has (and therefore this must be true: )

mellow
(of fruit) soft, sweet and juicy with ripeness
(of wines) mature, free from acidity
(of sound, colour, light) rich and soft, full and pure, without harshness
figuratively: mature, ripe with age, softened and sweetened by age and experience (yep! that's me! )

That all sounds positive to me.

[JPablo]

I would go with “treacly” and/or “corny”.

I think the “empalagoso” option (mentioned by Poli) is the most applicable. (Moliner and DRAE give it as a synonym for “almibarado”.) DRAE gives, in its updated/proposed new version, “Blando y meloso en el trato y en las palabras.”

I checked a bunch of synonyms, but I think the best word in English for this “almibarado” business, is “treacly”, as per what Cambridge/Klett bilingual dictionary gives for “empalagoso” 3. (película) treacly

New Shorter Oxford gives,
treacly a. resembling treacle in quality or appearance; fig. cloyingly sweet or sentimental, honeyed:

Random House gives,
trea·cle, n.
1. contrived or unrestrained sentimentality: a movie plot of the most shameless treacle.
2. Brit.
a. molasses, esp. that which is drained from the vats used in sugar refining.
b. Also called golden syrup. a mild mixture of molasses, corn syrup, etc., used in cooking or as a table syrup.

You also have other modifiers such as, mellifluous,
mel·lif·lu·ous adj.
1. sweetly or smoothly flowing; sweet-sounding: a mellifluous voice; mellifluous tones.
2. flowing with honey; sweetened with or as if with honey.

And of course, you can always use “corny”. (Random House: 2. Informal.
a. old-fashioned, trite, or lacking in subtlety: corny jokes.
b. mawkishly sentimental: a corny soap opera.

[aleCcowaN]

Wow! A lot of options!

The key-point with almibarado is that it doesn't cloy. I now understand why Angélica thought mellow would be a good match, because it has that passive quality of being sweet and nice without assaulting the palate.

Ameche playing an almibarado role means an Ameche simplified, trivialized, in primary colours, with an easy smile, sweet and bland at the same time.

I ask your aid in giving a thought to it, as English is rich in words to describe, how can I call it? the shown ethos of a character. Quicksilver is one of those excellent words. I'm thinking now that a good translation for almibarado might be plastic, as both highlight the artificial and superficial quality, born to be nice.

[poli]

The word is jejune, but I would bet that maybe 1% of all English speakers know the term. Vapid is a related word that nobody uses.

If it's the character, you may say he's shallow or one dimentional.

If it's the writer's fault you may say he is not fleshed-out enough.

The movie is pure fantasy. Everyone in it is kind of plastic, but in a genial way. Betty Grable didn't have much of a dark side either.

PS Quicksilver is another word for mercury. The adjective mercurial discribes some difficult personality traits.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Originally Posted by Perikles

I didn't really think that mellow was much like almibarado, to be honest, because mellow (I think) is predominantly a positive quality. In fact, I can't think of a pejorative example. [...]

Thank you, Perikles.
I deal much with people who write in English, but whose first language is not English, so perhaps I learnt it from a wrong interpretation of the word and inherited the vice without checking first. Now I know better.

[powerchisper]

Hello

Almíbar ( for those who don't know ) is a saturated dissolution of water and sugar , use as a preservative for some canned fruits and stuff.

So , " Almibarado " is something that has been covered by or inmersed in "almíbar"

For example , "Melocotón en almíbar ligero"

Now , keep in mind that those movie critics may contain words that :

1) ..are invented by the author
2) ...son pedantes
3) are used in an abstract way.

May happen the same to some song's lyrics , where words doesn't always make sense.

If I'd read that sentence or heard "almibarado" on such speech , there would be one hundred possible meanings , but always think of "deliverately sweetened"

Hope this helps

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by poli

The word is jejune, but I would bet that maybe 1% of all English speakers know the term. Vapid is a related word that nobody uses.

If it's the character, you may say he's shallow or one dimentional.

If it's the writer's fault you may say he is not fleshed-out enough.

The movie is pure fantasy. Everyone in it is kind of plastic, but in a genial way. Betty Grable didn't have much of a dark side either.

PS Quicksilver is another word for mercury. The adjective mercurial discribes some difficult personality traits.

Thank you for those interesting options. Certainly this thread is making my vocabulary wider.

[pjt33]

I think JPablo's suggestion of corny is the best one so far.

[wrholt]

Originally Posted by powerchisper

Hello

Almíbar ( for those who don't know ) is a saturated dissolution of water and sugar , used as a preservative for some canned fruits and stuff.

So , " Almibarado " is something that has been covered by or inmersed in "almíbar"
...

In English the result of dissolving a solute in a solvent is a solution. The words "dissolute" and "dissolution" have different meanings.

[poli]

Oye English speakers, doesn't the word corny impy hickish to you? Don Ameche doesn't seem paleto to me at all. De hecho su imagen es mondano. En la película, habla por lo meno dos idiomas sin accento ridículo, se viste bien, canta casi opera ...y en su pelo brillante quizás se se puede usarlo como un espejo.

[Rusty]

2. Informal
a. old-fashioned, trite, or lacking in subtlety: corny jokes.
b. mawkishly sentimental: a corny soap opera.


stale, banal, ordinary, overused, overdone, hackneyed

[BenCondor]

Vapid is not a particularly rare word, in my opinion. Treacle, on the other hand, wow, I would have wagered $100 it wasn't even a word. Never once heard it, I'd be surprised if even 1 in 10,000 native English speakers had ever encountered it.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by BenCondor

Vapid is not a particularly rare word, in my opinion. Treacle, on the other hand, wow, I would have wagered $100 it wasn't even a word. Never once heard it, I'd be surprised if even 1 in 10,000 native English speakers had ever encountered it.

That is a really odd statement. I'm English, and I bet that every single English person I have met knows the words treacle and treacly. Both the COCA and BNC have plenty of examples, though treacly is not so common.

[aleCcowaN]

If you don't mind, poli

Originally Posted by poli

Oigan/Oíd English speakers, doesn't the word corny imply hickish to you? Don Ameche doesn't seem paleto to me at all. De hecho su imagen es mundana. En la película, habla por lo meno dos idiomas sin accento ridículo, se viste bien, canta casi opera ...y en su pelo brillante quizás se puede usarlo como un espejo.

Originally Posted by Rusty

2. Informal
a. old-fashioned, trite, or lacking in subtlety: corny jokes.
b. mawkishly sentimental: a corny soap opera.


stale, banal, ordinary, overused, overdone, hackneyed

This is a word I learnt in context and I'm now surprised by the divergent meanings and translations offered by dictionaries that I've just read.

To me it may mean, depending on context:

• sensiblero, populachero, chabacano (esto último, cuando es abusivo)
• primario, poco sutil, efectista (esto último, cuando se usa en gran escala)
• banal, insustancial
• trillado, cliché

What may be confusing about almibarado is the sweet component. If something is sweet, cloying, etc. we'd probably use meloso instead. Almibarado is sort of half way meloso, as the word is used in the sense of any tasteless or even rancid food probably being accepted by the herd if added some syrup or salt -or ketchup, I may add-. Ameche played the classy or mundane guy in the film as the 'lower orders' imagine being classy is, so a character lacking any depth, sketched with a thick paintbrush, is livened up by adding an eager smile and some jolliness. That's the act of almibarar that leaves us with something that looks almibarado.