While we wait we hope, or a window into another culture

“While I breathe, I hope,” the Romans used to say. Sounds right, doesn’t it? Hope springs eternal in the human breast, to use the English expression that means more or less the same thing. Or while there’s life there’s hope.

Waiting. And hoping. At least to be seen

In Spanish, the word “esperar” means both “to wait” and “to hope”. As though you can only wait in hope. Which seems reasonable. After all, why would you bother to wait at all, if not in hope of its yielding something?

Come to think of it, I can see a marketing slogan in there somewhere. “We give you hope – while u wait”. For any reasonable level of royalty, I’m happy to provide that to one of those weird new churches that keep popping over across the US.

But “esperar” isn’t the only Spanish word that has enchanted me recently.

“Destino” is another, with its double meaning of destination and destiny. You’ve got to admit that its quite attractive to get to where you’re going and realise you didn’t just plan to go there, you were fated to.

We’ve been having work done on a bathroom recently, and inevitably required the help of what the Spanish call a “fountaineer”, a “fontanero”. In English, that’s just a plumber, but doesn’t that seem horribly prosaic compared to someone who specialises in fountains?

One of the standard tools used by a fountaineer and, come to that, by any other handy man or man less handy, like me, is a “destorniallador”. A “tornillo” is a screw, so a “destornillador” is the tool that allows you to remove a screw. The Spanish seem more concerned with removing the things than with putting them in. Which is curious, since you can’t unscrew anything you haven’t already screwed up. 

Although, to be fair, there are also screwups you can’t fix with a screwdriver.

In English, it’s the opposite: you use a screwdriver to drive a screw into position, with never a care as to how to get it out again afterwards.

The French are much more logical about the naming of this instrument. A “tournevis” is, as its name implies, a tool for turning a “vis” or screw. Which way you turn it depends on you and the circumstances.

Sometimes the Spanish can be hopelessly complicated. What we call simply a “postman”, and the French a “facteur”, they call a “distributor of mail” or “repartidor de correos”. What a mouthful for such a simple notion…

Another great recent discovery was a word which sounded, to me, like “fiery”. It was something we were asked for as work was finishing on some tiles. “Fiery?” we asked.

It seems they were after some detergent. “Liquido detergente” it’s called, which again is a mouthful. Hence the shortened term, pronounced “fiery’ but spelled “fairy”, as in Fairy Liquid, the renowned dishwashing product.

Ah, well. One of the delights of being an immigrant in a new country is learning a little about its language. All the more delightful because it isn’t just a matter of different words. It’s also a matter of seeing things in a different way.

Not just a new language then, but a new culture too.