In this bonus episode, Wendy Dale shares how English words like “Tupper” and “attach” have been adapted into Spanish in creative ways. We also talk about her experience living in Peru, her thoughts on language learning as an adult, and her book recommendations for writers and readers.
In this bonus episode, Wendy Dale shares how English words like “Tupper” and “attach” have been adapted into Spanish in creative ways. We also talk about her experience living in Peru, her thoughts on language learning as an adult, and her book recommendations for writers and readers.
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MIGNON: Greetings, Grammarpaloozians! I am here today with Wendy Dale for our bonus segment. In the main show, we talked all about her book, "The Memoir Engineering System" and writing memoirs, but now she lives in Peru, and told me she had some really interesting things to say about how English is badly, she, how she hears English being "badly" used.
Wendy, welcome and let's hear about these words.
WENDY: This is one of my favorite things to talk about. I love Grammar Girl. I just think I love grammar. I love words used badly, and one of my favorite things to talk about is English words that have made their way into Spanish and are used badly. Having said that, there are plenty words of Spanish, words in Spanish, that are also used badly in English, so it's not, this happens in every culture, right?
MIGNON: I'm wondering if we should use the word, they're not used badly, they're used creatively, or differently, we don't like to be judgmental here, so let's not say badly.
WENDY: Yeah, true. Okay. So used creatively. Is that …
MIGNON: Yeah, let's do that.
WENDY: Okay. So English words used creatively. Now this happens in all cultures, right? In English, we have lots of words that we mispronounce in Spanish. Just as one example, Palos Verdes, that's outside of Los Angeles should be Palos Verdes, right?
It sounds totally different. Palos Verdes. Everyone does this in their own language. They mispronounce words, and the meaning changes, right? But I still love it. I, because I think it's, I think it's human. And as a native English speaker, I also find it amusing. One of my favorites is, the word "tápper," which is which comes in any plastic container that you store your food in with the top is called in Spanish a tápper with an accent over the A, and it comes from the English Tupperware.
So this evolved. I don't know where or how. I don't have that information because this is a modern word that's made its way into Spanish, but "tápper" is what everyone uses for a plastic container. You're going to store your food in, at least, now I … let me qualify this. My Spanish is from. Bolivia and Peru.
Spanish, just like English, varies, just like British English is different than Canadian English is different than American English. I really know most about Bolivian and Peruvian Spanish. Mexican Spanish, I don't know if they use the word "tápper" in Mexico, for instance.
MIGNON: Okay, great. How did you come to live in Peru, actually?
WENDY: I lived in Peru when I was a little girl. So the first time I lived in Peru, I was four years old, and my father worked as a mining engineer at a copper mine in Peru. And so I actually learned Spanish when I was four years old. We left when I was seven, but my family has always had a lot of contact with Latin America.
So moving back here in a weird way felt like moving home.
MIGNON: It is so much easier to learn a language as a child. Did you find that, did you, did it come back a lot faster when you needed to start using it again a lot?
WENDY: Absolutely. It was really weird because I would speak Spanish as a teenager, and I'd forgotten all the vocabulary, but I had a really good accent. And so I was, I was bumbling around saying things like "Me want food, hungry," right? But I said it with like, it didn't have this, I had a native accent. So it was very strange and it did come back very quickly. Yes.
MIGNON: That's so interesting. So, what are some of the other words?
WENDY: One of my favorites is the word "full," pronounced "fool," right? the American word "full." But they use it differently. they use it, like, they use it the way we would use the word "completely." So they would talk about a party, and they would say "full locura," "locura" being craziness, right? Full. It was like completely crazy.
So they use the English word "full" to mean "completely" and not, and they never use it as something that is literally full. You would never use, you would never use it as a glass of water. They would never say "full vaso." They would never say it; they use it to mean "completely" like "full locura," full … What's another example?
MIGNON: Would they say something like, that's full expensive? Or is it more for like full wild?
WENDY: "Full caro?" No, because it's not completely expensive. Do you know what I mean? I, it, that one wouldn't work … "full caro." It actually wouldn't work because it would be extremely expensive. You wouldn't call something completely as wholly and entirely, replace "full" with "entirely," right?
And so "entirely expensive" doesn't quite make sense. So they, they, think of "full" as being "entirely, completely."
MIGNON: But never a full glass. That's interesting. Yeah. What else?
WENDY: Completely boring. Entirely boring. Yes. Another word I like is the word, the English word "attach," but they use it as a noun. So they call it, instead of saying "an attachment," they say "un attach," right? And so this comes, now it's actually, they don't use it quite as often anymore because now things are translated into Spanish.
So now way back when email was only in English, and at the bottom there was a little paper clip and it said "attach." And so they're like, "Oh, that's an attachment." And so they use it as a noun, and they will say, "Send me an attach, mandame, un attach." No, they use it less now that it is in Spanish, now that email is in Spanish, but the word still exists.
So they use "attach" as a noun because in email, it said "attach." And so they're like, oh, it's an attach , so I'll send you …
MIGNON: That makes sense. So it was abbreviated in the menu, but yeah, it just
WENDY: Well, in English. Think of it, it's a, it's telling you this is how to attach. If you want to attach, click here. So it makes sense. But they just assume that it was an attach, it was a noun.
MIGNON: Mm-hmm. And so what's the word in Spanish now?
WENDY: Would be "adjuntar." So I think it does say "adjuntar" now in Spanish in emails; so therefore, it's declining in use.
MIGNON: Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. But it's shorter. It's shorter.
Yeah. Yeah. So what else?
WENDY: So, I think other things that I find entertaining are sometimes the way that English words are pronounced. To this day, they will still say "guglar" or "gugle" for Google. "Gugle" brand names.
My husband and I went to buy a television and we were, you know, "Could you tell me how much the Phillips cost?" Obviously, this was in Spanish, but "Me puedes decir el precio del Phillips?" No, no, wait. "Me puedes decir el precio del Phillips?"
And she corrected us, right? So, I said, could you tell me the price of the Phillips? And she said, "El Phillips?" Right? And so, they pronounced the P. And my husband and I, you know, we laughed. And then to this day, we now say "Pelips?" Just because it makes us laugh.
So, also the word "source" on a remote control. This is a different experience. We've bought a lot of TVs. I think a lot of our TVs burn out. I feel like, oh, we have a lot of buying television stories.
So, buying a television, and he was teaching us how to set up the TV, and he was showing us the remote control. And he was like, "Well, you have to press the button, "Sa-our-say." And I was like, "Oh, source." Right?
And so, it is actually a very difficult language to pronounce. It really is, right?
I'm sure, you know, I think about that a lot. It really is incredible. The spelling has nothing to do with the way it's pronounced. So, it makes sense that it would be pronounced "Sa-our-say," right?
MIGNON: Yeah. No, that's one of the things that was really interesting when I interviewed the spelling bee people is they don't have spelling bees in Spanish because the spelling matches how you pronounce it. Like you don't have to guess how a word is spelled like you do in English or learn, you know.
WENDY: Exactly. Yes, they don't have spelling bees. It's kind of incomprehensible to them that I would ask someone how to spell their last name.
MIGNON: Right.
Yeah.
And it does. It makes learning Spanish, it makes learning Spanish pronunciation easier. I can't do it well, but I know what it should be by looking at the word.
WENDY: Okay. So, speaking of names, I have a few funny spellings for names. So, it has gotten a little bit trendy to give your children English names. Not everyone, but some people.
It sounds fancier when you have a child with a foreign name, a name that is in English, but they've, speaking of Spanish being phonetically spelled, they use Spanish phonetic spelling for their children's names. So, for instance, "Daisy" would be D-E-Y-S-I. Daisy.
That is how you would spell it phonetically in Spanish.
MIGNON: That makes sense.
WENDY: It does, yes. Makes you want it to have gone to high school in Spanish, right?
Imagine how much easier it would have been.
Gary. So, Gary's another name, quite common, at least in Bolivian Peru.
It's spelled G-U-E-R-Y.
Gary.
MIGNON: Gary. Yeah, of course.
MIGNON: Gary is how it would be pronounced. Gary, but it comes from the English Gary.
So. Oh, that's so interesting.
That's wonderful.
I love these language stories.
WENDY: I actually have two more for you.
I have two more.
John is spelled J-H-O-N.
And I wondered for the longest time, almost always, never J-O-H-N, as we'd spell it in English, but J-H-O-N. And I wondered for the longest time, everyone was spelling it this way. And then someone said to me, well, of course you would put the H after the J, because otherwise it would be hon, right?
Because the H in Spanish sounds like an H. But by putting the H after the J, it becomes J-H-O-N. That's how they think about it in Spanish.
The final one is my own last name. My last name is Dale. And it's pronounced "dal-ey" in Spanish, which I think is very funny. So I usually have to tell people my name is Wendy Dale. And they always laugh because "dale" means "go for it." So I'm like, "Wendy, go for it" in Spanish.
MIGNON: That's great.
That reminds me of, I know there's this thing in, like, marketing, like sales people, business people, sometimes they'll change their name to be something like John Winner, or like John Gold or something. I've heard of people doing that to try to make themselves seem like subconsciously more successful.
I've always thought that was really weird. It's built in. We usually wrap up with book recommendations, so this is just, if, a friend came to you and asked, what's a book that you recently read or you really enjoyed that I might like, what are some books that you could share?
WENDY: So I think I have a fondness for a little bit of dark fiction. My favorite writers, I love Chuck Pollinick, but he's so well known. And I think most of your readers probably have heard of Chuck Pollinick, the writer of "Fight Club."
But there are other lesser known writers. So I didn't come here wanting to recommend Chuck Pollinick. I don't think he needs the publicity.
But that is what I think there are the writers that fall in kind of this category that are lesser known.
One of my favorite books is actually "The Virgin Suicides" by Jeffrey Eugenides, which he's also somewhat well known.
I think he writes the most beautiful prose. I really, I love his prose so much. He's my favorite prose writer. So he doesn't, he's not very prolific. He has, I think he's only written three novels. I mean, it takes him a long time to write such beautiful prose, but I love "The Virgin Suicides."
Another novel that I absolutely love is called "The Underachiever's Diary," which is, it's kind of an older novel. It reads very much like a memoir. It's the story of two twins. They're born at the same time, physically identical. One of them is a loser, basically. How did an underachiever in the book, the other one does everything well. And so it's told from the point of view of the underachiever. And it's just, it's beautifully written. And it's just very funny. So it's just, I love that book. It came out, I don't know, it's probably 20 years old.
So I would love it if people went out and bought it because I love lesser known writers who are just really talented. So I would love it if people went out and bought in it.
I don't know him. I don't know Benjamin Anastas. I don't know him, but I just think it's, it's just a brilliant book. It's very tiny. It's a very short book. It's just a brilliantly written novel. Not a ton of plot, but just completely entertaining and very funny.
MIGNON: Interesting. Oh, that sounds wonderful. Thank you so much again. Wendy Dale.
WENDY: Oh, I have one more for you.
MIGNON: Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes. One more. More, more, We want the third.
WENDY: So the three is actually another book that I read a very long time ago. It was honestly my favorite book in college. It's called "How to Lie with Maps." And it's been revised.
It was written for the first time in the 90s. And I just, I found it so fascinating. Something as factual as a map that you could lie with them. And I think it's become even more relevant now with fake news and what is true and what is false. I loved this book in college. It's since been revised, but it's "How to Lie with Maps."
And it starts with the premise that I think the first line, I'm going to paraphrase it, but the first line of the book is not only is it easy to lie with maps, it's essential. And I love that concept.
MIGNON: And why is it essential?
WENDY: Well, the world is a globe. And to take a three-dimensional object and portray it in two dimensions, you have to make some decisions, right? You have to. So you might have to make Greenland look smaller than it really is.
Another way to lie with maps is if you buy a map in the United States, North America is always going to be in the middle of the map. If you buy a map in Europe, Europe is going to be in the middle of the map. So even what looks factual on the surface is subject to a lot of interpretation.
MIGNON: Oh, that's fascinating.
You know what else I'll say about your book recommendations is they all have really interesting titles.
And which reminds me, your memoir, we didn't talk about it, but your memoir has a really fun title, too. Tell people what the title of your memoir is.
WENDY: My memoir is called "Avoiding Prison and Other Noble Vacation Goals."
And spoiler alert, I wasn't too good at avoiding it, but I was just visiting. So.
MIGNON: That's great. Thank you so much, Wendy. Wendy Dale, author of "The Memoir Engineering System." Thank you so much for being here.
If people want to learn more about you, where can they find you?
WENDY: Go to freememoirclass.com or go to my website, geniusmemoirwriting.com.
MIGNON: Wonderful. And to all the Grammarpollsians who've joined us today, thank you so much for supporting the show. It really means a lot, and it really helps. We appreciate you.
Thank you and goodbye.