Una escalera

[laepelba]

Originally Posted by Sancho Panther

¿pero por favor dime qué quiere decir «Laepelba»? - ¡soy muy chafadero!

Sancho - please ask in English again - I am not sure what you're asking me. Sorry! And what is "chafadero"?

[chileno]

Originally Posted by Sancho Panther

Sorry Chileno but indistinguishably would hardly ever be used in English, and besides it does not mean what you appear to think it means! It more or less means not recognisably, so as a loyal subject of Her Britannic Majesty I have to pull linguistic rank and insist that the word you require is interchangeably!

If you continue in your obdurate recalcitrance the UK Special Branch (Grammar and Vocabulary Divn.) will be advised and punitive measures will undoubtedly ensue.

Got it!

Originally Posted by laepelba

WHOA!! Hernán - I'd be scared!!

I know.

[Sancho Panther]

¿pero por favor dime qué quiere decir «Laepelba»? - ¡soy muy chafadero!

Word for word - "But please tell me what is meant by 'Laepelba' - I'm very nosy!"

[laepelba]

OH!!!!!! Got it. Sorry - your Spanish is much better than mine, and of course, being a proper Brit, I'm sure that your English is much better than mine, too.

My first name is "Lou Ann" and "aepelba" are the first seven letters of my last name. I was assigned "laepelba" as a login at an old job quite a few years ago. Since then, I have continued to use that as a login everywhere on the internet - as it's easiest to remember just one user ID and not several different ones.

But I'm starting to wonder if this one is causing more confusion than anything....

Call me "Lou Ann". (Or, I think that Hernán has convinced me that "Luanita" is something I could live with....)

[Sancho Panther]

Uh-uh, he vuelto a meter la pata - my wife, although not actually catalana lived for many years in Barcelona and many Catalán words have been adopted into the Castellano spoken there - and I pick them up! Chafardero is one of them (I've just done a bit of research!) - it actually means gossip - not nosy at all! Oh well, we live and learn!

'Estirar' is another one - all our household used it meaning 'lie down' (catalán usage) but when our daughter went to live at her partner's mother's in Alicante they were baffled by it; it turned out they use tumbarse everywhere else in Spain! Estirar means 'stretch' apparently.

BTW you're too charmingly modest, Lou Ann!

She once sent me shopping in Alicante for paella ingredients (brief, verbal list) I was fine with with calamares, sepias and pulpos, then I asked for a half kg of escamalanes which baffled the pescadera totally. She got quite irritated as I couldn't point to them because I was unsure what was meant by it! So I went home sin escamalanes and copped a fair bit of constructive criticism of my linguistic shortcormings; as a paella without escamalanes is useless, apparently.

So mi señora went to the pescadería and returned with a half kg of cigalas (small crayfish), but no apology for me! Apparently there is hardly any flesh on them - but their strong taste is what gives flavour to the paella!

[laepelba]

Sancho - that's a funny story! I LOVE paella, by the way - recently had some at a local Peruvian restaurant that I just discovered. It was AMAZING and there was LOTS of food!!!

I don't know that I'm so modest. But I am frequently told by my British friends that my English is substandard merely by the fact that it is American English, and not proper British English. Apparently we yankees have gone and changed a bunch of words so that they're not "proper" any more.

[chileno]

Hi Sancho,

Originally Posted by Sancho Panther

'Estirar' is another one - all our household used it meaning 'lie down' (catalán usage) but when our daughter went to live at her partner's mother's in Alicante they were baffled by it; it turned out they use tumbarse everywhere else in Spain! Estirar means 'stretch' apparently.

That's right. I haven't heard of that word in ages either. Estirar means to stretch and if you think about it when you go lying down you are stretching, right?

Is that stretching it too much? :-)

And yes, even here people say tumbarse.

[poli]

Estirar la pata means to die (kind of like to kick the bucket)

[chileno]

Originally Posted by poli

Estirar la pata means to die (kind of like to kick the bucket)

Right. And kick the bucket would be the perfect translation. :-)