Wares / merchandise

[Pixter]

Good morning! What is the difference between wares and merchandise? do we have a Spanish word for wares???

[poli]

These two words have the same meaning. Merchandise is latinate, and wares sounds really northern (germanic? Anglos Saxon?) to me.

In the case of these two words merchandise is the more popular word, which is unusual, because generally the word with fewer syllables wins.

As someone well-versed in English as you are there are times when
ware is used exclusively (hardware, housewares). And some sayings sound better with wares (go sell you wares somewhere else)
The monger sells his/her wares.
The salesman sell his/her merchandise.

[Ambarina]

I don't see the difference between Wares and merchandise. Both are articles/goods that are bought and sold. I'd say they were synonyms.

The Spanish would be mercancía(s) / artículos de mercancía.
Shopkeepers would say something like "No me ha llegado la mercancía", i.e the order hasn't arrived.
Is that what you're getting at?

[Pixter]

I work with a 5th grade Spanish-speaking student and two of the vocabulary words for this week are wares and merchandise. I guess wares are kind of the same type of merchandise (flatware) and merchandise could be anyhing?? I don't think we have a spanish word just for "wares."

[poli]

I don't think there is. English is a composite language with both
germanic (or anglo) and latinate words used for the same meaning or significance. Usually the anglo word is short as in ware and the latinate word is long as in merchandise. Spanish doesn't have the same split personality. There may be a lot of synonymns in Spanish, but I would bet that there are more in English.

[irmamar]

Not so easy Spain was invaded by a lot of different people. We have many words without a Latin origin: Arabian, Germanic, pre-Romance (), Greek, etc.

[poli]

Originally Posted by irmamar

Not so easy Spain was invaded by a lot of different people. We have many words without a Latin origin: Arabian, Germanic, pre-Romance (), Greek, etc.

Claro que sí, pero en inglés para una gran cantidad de palabras anglo sajón existe su equivalante latina. Ejemplos: sharp/acute, dull/obtuse, smart/intelligent. healthy/salubrious, sick/infirmed, amount/qunatity. tiny/miniscule, big/grand, huge/immense ... de hecho es una list imensa.

[Perikles]

I agree with Poli here - clearly Irmamar is correct in that there are many Spanish words of origin other than Latin, but Spanish is fundamentally derived from one language only. English is a Germanic language with basic vocabulary and syntax from Anglo-Saxon, but with fusion with French from the Normans, so that for a couple of centuries after 1066 the country was effectively bi-lingual. We have some fossils to illustrate this, such as expressions like 'Last Will and Testament' - a tautology to ensure that everyone from the two cultures will understand. In addition we have the two genitives - a Saxon genitive and a French genitive construction. As Poli points out, English has huge numbers of parallel words from different roots, which is not quite the same as importing a word where a Latin one is absent.

[irmamar]

¿Sólo un par de centurias? Poco tiempo si comparamos los años que pasaron entre 711, cuando los árabes invadieron España y 1492, cuando fueron expulsados definitivamente. Algo más de setecientos años (poca cosa...). Hay estudios sobre el bilingüismo en la península durante ese tiempo.

[Perikles]

But in Britian, the two cultures eventually combined, and the two were ultimately assimilated into one language. The fact that the Arabs were eventually expelled proves my point that their culture was recognised as foreign, and eventually rejected.

[irmamar]

Originally Posted by Perikles

But in Britian, the two cultures eventually combined, and the two were ultimately assimilated into one language. The fact that the Arabs were eventually expelled proves my point that their culture was recognised as foreign, and eventually rejected.

Then, why do we have so much words with an Arabian origin. You can see them here.

[poli]

Originally Posted by irmamar

Then, why do we have so much words with an Arabian origin. You can see them here.

Gracias para esta lista imensa, pero repito: no es igual al inglés. En inglés existe casi un idioma paralelo. En español existe una gran cantidad de palabras de origen arabe (muchos casi no usadas o usado en Andalucía nada más--como alfeizar y alfofa y otros tambien se usa en ingles) Es claro que el sonido de la letra "j"
me parece muy árabe. Ojalá que un día alquiles un coche para encuentar al alcalde de Majarit en la calle Alcalá

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by irmamar

Then, why do we have so much words with an Arabian origin. You can see them here.

Come on Irma - that is a total of 1285 words. The Spanish language has about 92,000 words in it, so the Arabic ones are not even 2%, and they include words like jirafa which are clearly new concepts.

How many pairs of synonyms can you find, where one of the two words come from Latin, the other from Arabic?

[irmamar]

Pues para tener tan solo un 25% de palabras de origen germánico (incluyendo inglés antiguo, noruego antiguo y holandés), podéis hacer muchos sinónimos, ¿no?

[Perikles]

¿alto el fuego?

[irmamar]

¿Fuego? Pensaba que lo que tenías era agua.



Por cierto, ¿cómo se dice "alto el fuego" en inglés?

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by irmamar

Por cierto, ¿cómo se dice "alto el fuego" en inglés?

Cease-fire

[Pixter]

Hey guys, I just thought of a word we could use for "wares."

Artículos de ferretería (hardware store)
A cook's wares (artículos de cocina)