Thursday, April 1, 2010

Why take the blame? {updated}

....When you can give the blame to inanimate objects or situations!

This is one aspect of Spanish that is both very interesting to me (how it arose linguistically) and that I LOVE.

When one speaks Spanish and needs to describe an event in which something happens and there is an object--the object can take the action --often in situations which in Enlgish we would be placing blame or guilt.

Here are some good examples:
I dropped this--the hat or whatever.
Se me cayó.
Literal translation: It fell itself {to} me.

I forgot.
Se me olvidó.
Literal translation: It forgot itself to me.

I broke it.
Se me rompió.
Literal translation: It broke itself to me.



Now, the {to me} part is the best way I can explain it.
That might be wrong, actually--but it is how I have organized it in my head.

Now, some people would have a really hard time with this, b/c for some people any unfortunate event must really, truly have someone to blame. My dad is one of these people.
Nothing ever just breaks--b/c it is old, for example. SOMEONE BROKE IT!!
I think he must feel this way b/c he is always the one that fixes everything.
It is funny to me that in Spanish you just inherently (b/c it is built into the language) blame the thing.
So there!

Have a great Thursday. :)


I just thought of a funny one...
the Senate could say the Health care bill...
"Se nos aprobo!"
It passed itself to us! :)
HA--Maybe that would make people stop annoying the h3ll out of me with the stupid cr@p they put on faceb00k. :) (that was for you Bethany)

1 comment:

Bethany said...

Yes!!! Let's adopt the spanish way of transliteration. Or something like that. The beer - it poured itself into my mouth! ;) Happy friday... just getting caught up on all your posts...

Spot on!

Spot is our family's chihuahua.  He is what we call, "an evil dictator/stuffed animal come to life".  Sometimes, after he has ...